


Skaia Hates You

by Charlezard



Series: Skaia Hates You [1]
Category: Hiveswap, Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, End of the World, Friendship, Hope, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Mental Health Issues, Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-24
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-16 05:01:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28950831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Charlezard/pseuds/Charlezard
Summary: Skaia Hates You is a homestuck fan-story that has little-to-nothing to do with Homestuck, aside from worldbuilding. In this session, Skaia is glitched and broken, and wants the main cast to die. This is a serial work, and will be coming out in chunks as I make them. There is also a PDF version which is formatted more closely to how Homestuck looks, and more accurately to how I want it to be, because CSS is a nightmare, and this story just doesn't look right here.PDF: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HZZSb0r153wi8Dp2liKFr1CBOHZVcRQ8/view?usp=sharing
Series: Skaia Hates You [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2123427
Kudos: 2





	Skaia Hates You

**Author's Note:**

> Skaia Hates You is a homestuck fan-story that has little-to-nothing to do with Homestuck, aside from worldbuilding. In this session, Skaia is glitched and broken, and wants the main cast to die. This is a serial work, and will be coming out in chunks as I make them. There is also a PDF version which is formatted more closely to how Homestuck looks, and more accurately to how I want it to be, because CSS is a nightmare, and this story just doesn't look right here.
> 
> PDF: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HZZSb0r153wi8Dp2liKFr1CBOHZVcRQ8/view?usp=sharing

**Riven** **== > ** **Today’s The Day!**

**The girl rolls out of bed sluggishly. She checks the clock. 10:30. She’s not surprised. With nothing to wake up for...**

**Her room is cold. As usual. Overly clean, overly sterile. A smell like rubbing alcohol permeates every surface. She’s grown used to it, though still, every time she’s made aware of it, she’s repulsed.**

**There’s a large L-shaped desk in the corner, and a window up near the ceiling, where natural light streams in, the only offset to the flickering fluorescent lights.**

**A pneumatic tube is next to the computer, at the side of the desk. For mail and stuff.**

**Beside the tube, on the wall above the other leg of the desk, is a flat screen TV.**

**In the corner away from her bed, there’s a compound exercise machine, part treadmill, part weight bench. Somehow. Katrina had given up on wondering how it worked.**

**A door at one end leads into the bathroom, while another leads out into the hall, though the girl knows it’s locked.**

**Groggily, she heads into the bathroom. She stares at herself in the mirror. Pale skin, purple eyes. White hair, like snow, tousled by sleep.**

**Her name is** **Katrina Brandt** **.**

**She scowls at her reflection.**

**She hates this bathroom. She hates the room outside. She hates this entire building.**

**She flings open the medicine cabinet so that she doesn’t have to stare at her reflection. Hideous.**

**She strips and gets into the shower, turning the water as hot as it will go.**

**Which isn’t very hot at all, thanks to the hospital’s stupid anti-self-harm procedure.**

**After towelling off, she gets dressed in a purple tank top, gray sweatpants, and a black hoodie. She flumps down in front of her computer. A hulking twin-monitor behemoth, built by her own two hands over the last few months.**

**She turns it on and feels the entire desk pulse to life, buzzing with electricity. Brimming with power. The monitors flicker to life, and the windows she had open last night open again.**

**The chat client goes off, but she minimizes it.**

**Instead, she opens up some shooter and blows off some steam for a while. With nothing better to do, of course.**

**The pneumatic tube activates with a whistle and a thunk suddenly, as something comes down.**

**Katrina jumps, her reflexes failing suddenly, causing her immediate downfall at the hands of alien scum.**

**She scowls, and closes the game. The chat bleeps again, but she ignores it.**

**She reaches over to the tube and opens it. There’s a small cylinder with a letter in it.**

**She opens it. It’s a... Greeting card?**

My Dearest Katrina,

Happy 16th! Sorry, we couldn’t celebrate together. It’s been far too long, but I promise, your mother and I are working on a cure. I can’t promise you next year’s going to be the one. But we’re getting closer.

I have a good feeling about this year.

I Love You,

Dad.

**Katrina reads the card for a moment.**

**Sixteen? Is she really sixteen?**

**Christ. That makes her incarceration ten years now.**

**She opens a drawer to her left, next to the floor. It’s full of other cards. Birthday cards. Christmas cards... And underneath them, ‘Get Well Soon’ cards. Ten fucking years worth of stupid cards.**

**She drops her dad’s card in with the rest and shuts the drawer.**

**She goes back to the computer, finally opening up the chat client.**

**-** **JaquelineRipsworth** **Has Messaged You -**

**JR: Hey**

**JR: HEY**

**JR: RIVEN WAKE UP**

**JR: Guess what dayyyy it issss?????**

**JR: ...**

**JR: Seriously, get up.**

**JR: Ok, I KNOW you’re online.**

**JR: I can SEE you’re playing that dumb shootemup!!**

**JR: Rivennn you prooooomiiiiised!!**

**RW: jfc, Jackie, chill.**

**RW: What, are you gonna get on my case about my suddenly being an old hag?**

**JR: Wait.**

**JR: That’s TODAY?**

**JR: Omg happy birthday!!**

**RW: Yeah, yeah.**

**RW: What do you want?**

**JR: It’s THE DAY.**

**RW: Jackie.**

**RW: What the hell are you talking about?**

**JR: You know the game we’ve been talking about forEVER in the mainchat? The alpha finally comes out today!**

**JR: They said they were gonna send copies out to everyone who pre-ordered!!**

**JR: Aren’t you EXCITED! We finally get to try!!**

**RW: Oh.**

**RW: Yeah, I guess you’re right.**

**RW: I wonder where my copy is...**

**JR: Better go find it.**

**JR: We’re putting together a party for it, it’s gonna be GREAT.**

**RW: I’m totally in.**

**RW: I just.**

**RW: Gotta find the damn game first.**

**JR: Well hurry up, OK?**

**JR: We’re already getting things set up, and we need your Game Address or**

**JR: something.**

**-** **JaquelineRipsworth** **Has Stopped Messaging You -**

**Katrina scoots her chair back away from the computer and checks the inside of the pneumatic tube. Nope. No more mail.**

**She stands, goes over to the door to the hallway, and presses an ear against it. Silence.**

**She runs back to the desk, opens the top drawer and pulls out a smart remote for the TV on the wall. She brings it back, and holds it flat against the door. There’s a light *Click* as the door unlocks!**

**Great. Her new RFID hacking trick works on these doors. So much for security. This trick was supposed to be for Amiibo hacking.**

**Katrina isn’t exactly a hacking wizard, but she does dabble in emulation, jailbreaking, and modding on occasion (Don’t tell Nintendo).**

**On second thought, before she heads out, she reaches into a drawer and grabs a hacked and heavily modded 3ds, quickly installing her chat client on it just in case.**

**And with that, she heads out into the hallway...**

**She opens the door and a rush of cold air swooshes into the room. Well. Colder air.**

**Katrina shivers. The hallway outside is kept dimly lit, presumably to save the electric bill.**

**She takes a breath and steps out the door, making sure she has the remote on her so she can get back in.**

**She reminds herself of how the hallway is laid out. The mail room for her ward is at the end of the hall to her left.**

**To her right, there’s a huge set of double doors. She knows these are locked so she can’t get through them, even with her RFID hacked remote. They’ve tightened that security with manual locks since that one night, two years ago.**

**The other doors along the hall lead to other hospital rooms, identical to her own. She’s been in a few of them before, back when they were occupied. Now, of course, they were empty. Well, except for one.**

**Mostly.**

**But other than that, she had the ward to herself.**

**She makes her way to the end of the hall, trying not to make too much noise. She can see her own breath against the cold of the hallway.**

**She pushes through the door to the mail room, opening onto a room full of crates and boxes. Most boxes are marked with some varying symbols.**

**Like:**

THIS END UP

**And:**

FRAGILE - HANDLE WITH CARE

**And this one:**

CATEGORY A BIOHAZARD - LEVEL 4 - UN 2814

**Wait, what?**

**Katrina finds herself curiously drawn to that last one.**

**If this were an outgoing mail room, this might make more sense. But it’s not. This is the incoming mail room for her ward.**

**Admittedly, this was the first time she’d broken into the mail room. And there was far more in here than she expected, given she’s the only one down here...**

**Looking at the crate in question, it appears to be addressed to... Catherine Brandt. Her mother. That can’t be good.**

**Katrina opens it up, curiosity getting the better of her. After sifting through packing peanuts, it seems like there’s a glass canister, with two layers of glass and huge metal caps on either end. Vacuum-sealed probably.**

**Better put it down for now. But why would her mother have this?**

**She carefully sets the canister down on the box, and moves on, eventually locating a package addressed to her. It’s wound up in packing tape obnoxiously.**

**She inspects the box for a minute, not seeing an opening in the tape, nor even a way to start unraveling the tape.**

**Eventually, she just gets frustrated at it, and punches it, putting a hole in the box.**

**Huh. Guess the exercise-mo-tron is actually paying off. Katrina thought it was just to stave off atrophy.**

**Turns out her hit was right in between the flaps of the box, so she can just pull it open, and she didn’t hurt anything besides a few packing peanuts.**

**Stupid packing peanuts.**

**After making a huge mess, she pulls out a... Smaller box.**

**Except this one is more like a box for a game system. It’s pretty big. It’s white, with a green stylized house on it, and in big green letters:**

**Jesus, that hurts to look at.**

**Staring at the... less than perfect logo, she wonders why the hell she signed up for this.**

**But then, it was supposed to be the most state-of-the-art technical polish. This game was supposed to be the most immersive experience since the invention of VR.**

**Personally, Katrina couldn’t stand VR. It was cool and all, but it made her seasick.**

**Whatever. She shakes her head. Getting off-topic.**

**She opens the smaller box.**

**After showing another layer of styrofoam packing who’s boss, Katrina finds:**

**Two disks, one red, and one blue, a small stack of cards, and a thick booklet.**

**Okay, cards first. What the heck is that about? She unwraps the plastic around them and examines them.**

**Most of them have a red border and a white face, with the top-right corner cut off, making them look pixely. She flips through the cards, but they all seem to be blank, the backs have some weird distorted pattern, that kinda looks like a QR code.**

**She flips through around 12 cards Until she gets to a different one. This one has a white border, and has a little picture on it. Some text on it reads ‘FULL DECK MODUS’.**

**Modus? What the heck?**

**She flips the white card over and there’s some options on the other side, but before she can take a good look at the—**

:> ERROR! SYLLADEX LOAD FAILED

:> RELOADING...

:> ERROR! FULLDECK.MODUS NOT FOUND

:> BAD FILENAME OR PATHWAY ERROR

:> LOAD DEFAULT

:> ARRAY.MODUS LOADING...

:> LOAD SUCCESSFUL

**...Wait, what the fuck? Katrina almost drops the blue card she’s holding.**

**...Blue card? It was white before, wasn’t it? She could have sworn...**

**This place must be driving her insane. She flips the card back over. Whatever this ‘ARRAY MODUS’ is, Katrina has no freaking clue how to use it.**

**she stuffs the cards into her pocket, and grabs the manual.**

Congratulations on your legitemate pre-purchase of SBURB!

SBURB is the most immersive gameplay experience EVER!

Within this guide are instructions on how to set up and play the SBURB Alpha!

Section 1: Installation!

**Just as Katrina turns the page into the first section, her 3ds bleeps as her chat client goes off, causing her to jump, and to throw the booklet. She watches in horror as the booklet collides with the crate the tank is on, sending it to the ground.**

**The sound of the vacuum seal breaking rings out in the silent room. the liquid within spilling out, splashing over the booklet, soaking into the pages.**

**Katrina watches some of the ink run off of the book, as it absorbs the clear liquid.**

**God. Fucking. Damn it.**

**Better not touch that book again...**

**She pulls out her 3ds and opens the chat to check it.**

**-** **JaquelineRipsworth** **Has Messaged You -**

**JR: You find it yet?**

**RW: Oh my god fucking chill**

**RW: I found it.**

**JR: Great!**

**JR: Well, hurry up ans get it installed already!**

**JR: The group is waiting for us!**

**RW: Hey, uh. What are these cards for?**

**-** **JaquelineRipsworth** **Has Stopped Messaging You -**

**RW: Oh. Okay. Cool.**

**RW: I’ll figure it out, then.**

**Katrina sighs. First things first. Better get the hell out of this room.**

**Heart pounding, she scoops up the disks and goes back to her room.**

**Once she plunks down in front of her computer, she inspects the disks a bit more thoroughly. The red one says “Client” on it, while the the blue one says “Host”.**

**She has no idea how to do this.**

**Sure would be helpful if there was some kind of pamphlet that came with the game that told her what to do.**

**She sighs and pulls up the chat client.**

**\- You Messaged** **JaquelineRipsworth** **-**

**RW: Jackie**

**RW: I found the game, but**

**RW: There are two disks apparently?**

**RW: Which do I need to install first?**

**RW: Jackie?**

**RW: .**

**RW: Great.**

**RW: Figures once I need you, you’re nowhere to be found.**

**\- You Stopped Messaging** **JaquelineRipsworth** **-**

**Katrina scowls at her computer. Well. So much for that.**

**Maybe she can try someone else. She opens up the group chat.**

**\- Group Message with** **JaquelineRipsworth** **,** **BabylonCrusader** **,** **CubistMetamorph** **, & ** **HollowSeiyaJin** **-**

**\- - - Today’s Messages - - -**

**JR: Morning, Al!**

**JR: *al**

**JR: *AL**

**JR: Grr**

**JR: GOOD.**

**JR: MORNING.**

**JR: EVERYONE.**

**HS: lol**

**HS: Morn**

**BC: Hey, Jackie**

**JR: Guess what?????????????**

**JR: Today is?????????????**

**BC: The 16th anniversary of the date the mayans predicted the world would end?**

**HS: Omg, you fuckin nerd**

**JR: um**

**JR: No. Not that**

**JR: It’s the day SBURB alpha comes out!!!**

**HS: Oh shit!**

**HS: You’re right!**

**HS: Did anyone else pre-order**

**BC: I think we all did**

**BC: I can’t speak for Cubie, though, sicne she isn’t here.**

**BC: *since**

**HS: We should totally set up a server and play it together**

**JR: Riv’s on, I’ll ask her if she did, and make her get installing it.**

**BC: I’m gonna go see if my mail came yet**

**HS: Sayonara**

**HS: I’ve already got my copy**

**HS: I’m reading through the manual**

**HS: This shit’s confusing**

**HS: I hope it makes more sense when we start playing.**

**HS: ...Where’d everyone go?**

**HS: sigh**

**HS: @CubistMetamorph**

**CM: hi**

**CM: sorry i havent been on a lot**

**HS: Did you preorder SBURB**

**CM: i didnt**

**CM: jim gets upset when i get games he doesn’t think i should play**

**HS: Damn.**

**HS: Hey, I bet Riv can hook you up, if you wanna play with us**

**HS: She’s some kinda crazy hacker type**

**CM: that would be nice**

**CM: it would be really cool to do stuff with you guys**

**\- End Of Group Message -**

**Katrina frowns. Ok, so Hollow read the manual. Better message him.**

**\- You Messaged** **HollowSeiyaJin** **-**

**RW: Hey**

**HS: Yo!**

**HS: Heard you were having some trouble finding your game.**

**RW: Nah, I found it**

**RW: But uh**

**RW: The hell are these cards for**

**HS: Bruh**

**HS: Didn’t you read the manual**

**RW: uh**

**RW: about that**

**RW: I don’t think mine came with one**

**HS: What? Weird...**

**RW: Yeah, super fuckin weird**

**RW: So anyway, I have no idea what I’m doing.**

**HS: Do you have anything installed yet?**

**RW: That’ll be a big Nope.**

**HS: Shit, dude.**

**HS: Ok so you’re gonna want to install the host disk first.**

**HS: That’s gonna take a while.**

**HS: And while that happens, we can decide who hosts for who.**

**RW: ...Hosts?**

**HS: Yeah, it’s kinda like a house-building game, I think. And the Host builds a house around the Client, kinda like The Sims? But apparantly there’s also combat?**

**HS: It’s pretty freakin weird**

**HS: Bet it’s gonna be a lot of fun.**

**RW: Ok.**

**RW: BTW, You never answered my question.**

**RW: What are the cards?**

**HS: Oh, they’re like an inventory system.**

**HS: You get to put stuff in them and they kinda exist in this pull-up menu.**

**RW: Okay...**

**RW: So**

**RW: Host disk first**

**RW: Then we talk about hosts.**

**RW: Right?**

**HS: Oh yeah, one more thing**

**HS: Cubie’s dad didn’t let her get a copy, but she still wants to play.**

**HS: Anything you can do about that?**

**RW: Don’t worry**

**RW: I’ll get her covered.**

**RW: It’s actually pretty simple**

**HS: OH SHIT**

**RW: ?**

**HS: WITH CUBIE WE HAVE 5**

**RW: 5 what**

**RW: dude, you’re scaring me**

**HS: 5 PLAYERS**

**HS: We CAN’T play the game with an odd number of players**

**RW: what**

**RW: why the hell not**

**HS: I dunno, it just won’t let us start**

**RW: sigh**

**RW: Thats stupid**

**RW: All right, fine.**

**RW: I can work something out to get us, like**

**RW: a dummy player or something**

**HS: You’re the best, Riven.**

**\- You Stopped Messaging** **HollowSeiyaJin** **-**

**Katrina closes the chat and groans.**

**Ok so, recap of all the bullshit she needs to do.**

**One: Create a disk image of BOTH disks, which will allow her to send virtual copies to Cubie.**

**Two: Install the Host disk.**

**Three: Make a dummy player, also using those disk images. This is going to be harder because she’s GUESSING that the game looks at IP addresses to determine what computer is being used.**

**Number one is going to take time. Fine. She has nothing BUT time.**

**Number three? Is going to require another computer. Which she doesn’t have.**

**Stupid game.**

**Well. For now, she can do the disk imaging part.**

**She inserts the Host Disk, and pulls up the disk image software.**

**She sighs and pulls out her 3ds to pass the time while the software reads the disk...**

**Mari** **== > ****Install The Game**

**7:00**

**This girl jumps out of bed before her alarm even rings, landing solidly on her feet.**

**She has dark, curly hair, and bright green, mischievous eyes. She’s younger than Katrina, by a solid three years, and over a foot shorter.**

**She quickly throws on her clothes, a gray sweater, and a pair of dark brown pants.**

**Her bedroom is smaller than Katrina’s, adorned with a bookshelf in one corner, full of medicine and chemistry textbooks, holy books of at least twenty different religions, and books on witchcraft and demonology. By her bed is a small dresser, with more books stacked up, next to her alarm clock. Mystery and horror novels. There’s also a soft plushie ghost on the bed, where she just jumped from.**

**A closet and dresser are on the far wall from the door.**

**Her name is** **Marigold Sheepcurl** **.**

**Aww! What a cute last name! She’s adorable!**

**No, it isn’t. Stop it. Shut up. She’s terrifying. She glares at you for making fun of her.**

**And with that, she bolts out the door, into a much larger stone-walled basement area.**

**The center of the room contains a suspicious operating table, and a pair of hefty-looking tesla towers.**

**Along one wall, above the door to her room, is a dangerous-looking staircase with no railing, leading to the rest of the house.**

**Opposite to that is a door leading outside, with some pegs next to it, for hanging coats. A black and green coat hangs next to the door, and a shovel leans casually on the wall next to it.**

**On the wall to her left is a crazy chemistry set, all tubes and beakers and boilers, far more complicated than would seem efficient, on top of a work table with cabinets.**

**How the hell does a thirteen year old get her hands on this stuff?**

**In one corner, there’s a computer tower that looks like it belongs in Dr Frankenstein's workshop.**

**That’s because it does. Kind of.**

**Mari darts to the computer and turns it on, not even bothering to sit down at the chair in front of it.**

**\- Group Message with** **Riven_Widok** **,** **BabylonCrusader** **,** **CubistMetamorph** **, & ** **HollowSeiyaJin** **-**

**JR: Morning, Al!**

**JR: *al**

**JR: *AL**

**JR: Grr**

**JR: GOOD.**

**JR: MORNING.**

**JR: EVERYONE.**

**\- End Of Group Message -**

**Grr. Nobody’s online! But maybe she can get one of her friends awake...**

**\- You Messaged** **Riven_Widok** **-**

**JR: Hey**

**JR: HEY**

**JR: RIVEN WAKE UP**

**JR: Guess what dayyyy it issss?????**

**\- You Stopped Messaging** **Riven_Widok** **-**

**Figures. No response. Stupid Riven.**

**She steps back from the computer.**

**She vibrates with excitement, unsure of what to do next.**

**The mail!!**

**Of course! The mailman usually came in the middle of the night, up here! The SBURB Alpha will have been delivered by now!**

**She darts over to the back door, and grabs her coat, pulling it over her head.**

**She hesitates for a moment, and then grabs her shovel.**

**Just in case she needs a shovel.**

**And with that she pushes open the back door, and steps out into a cold, snowless winter morning.**

**She puts a hand in front of her eyes, shielding it from the harsh dawn while her eyes adjust.**

**For a moment, she takes in her backyard, a huge garden, with sections and pathways, all full of flowers, and stones. And a few little marble buildings here and there. Occasional statues dot the carefully-kept lawn.**

**From here she can see most of the garden, and all it’s little rounded stones, crosses, and occasional statues or small stone buildings.**

**She takes a deep breath of the beautiful morning air.**

**Not one other kid in the country is lucky enough to have a backyard as awesome as she does.**

**Not one.**

**Not.**

**One.**

**Marigold takes another deep breath, basking in the atmosphere.**

**Ok, that's enough, lets go.**

**She makes her way through the garden around the house to get to the front yard, a beautifully kept lawn, even though it’s winter. Her house is massive, more of a mansion, really. The big set of front doors on one side lead to a path, but on the other side of the building, there’s a four-car garage, with a driveway leading across the lawn to a huge wrought-iron gate in a wall around the property.**

**Marigold trots up to the gate, and opens the mail deposit next to it. There’s the mail, all right. Looks like it’s all junk for her parents though.**

**But through the slot, she can see her package on the other side of the wall. Curses! How was she supposed to get to there without the code to the gate!**

**She stares at the gate, and the wall nearby, and a mischievous grin crosses her face slowly. There’s a tree next to the wall. The branches are too high to reach on her own, but...**

**She takes her shovel off her back, and stabs it into the tree at about head-height.**

**With some effort, she manages to climb up on top of it, and from there she can reach up and grab a branch.**

**Hooking her feet around the branch, she’s able to yank out the shovel from the bark and pull it up.**

**She’s now sitting on a branch nearly twice as high above the ground as she is tall.**

**Carefully, she stands up on it, and climbs onto the top of the wall. She can see it! Her package! It’s on the ground on the other side!**

**She clambers across the wall to above the package, and tries to reach down with her shovel to knock the package closer to the gate. If she can reach it from the other side, she can find a way to get it over, or even dig a hole under the gate and pull it through.**

**...Just a bit further, come on...**

**Her foot slips on the wall. A patch of ice she hadn’t noticed.**

**She scrambles to grab the wall, and find some footing, but instead plummets to the ground...**

**And lands flat on her back in a pile of leaves. Convenient!**

**She bounds to her feet quickly, grabs her package and shovel, and... Now what? She was trapped on the other side of the wall.**

**...Or was she?**

**No, she definitely was.**

**She sighs grumpily, and starts to make her way around the outside edge of the property.**

**Just as she starts to trudge off, the gate begins to open. Her mother, Myrtle, is standing there in a nightgown. And she looks PISSED.**

**“Oh. Hi mom.”**

**“Get over here.” Her mother commands.**

**Marigold does as she’s told.**

**“What were you doing climbing the wall?”**

**“There was mail for me, and I couldn’t wait for it.”**

**“Where were you last night?”**

**“I was here, honest!”**

**“You didn’t sneak out at all?”**

**“No, ma’am.”**

**“Then why were you outside the gate, with your clothes all muddy like that? You were out vandalizing the town again, weren’t you?”**

**“Mom, those were just harmless pranks!”**

**“I see you’ve stolen the groundskeeper’s shovel again, as well.”**

**“No, Mom, he gave it to me, see? I put these stickers on the wood part so he knows it’s mine!”**

**“Give me the shovel, Marigold.”**

**“But mom, it’s—”**

**“Marigold Addams Sheepcurl, do not make me ask again!”**

**“...Yes, Ma’am.”** **Marigold hands over her shovel.**

**“Go back to your room. We’ll call you when breakfast is ready.”**

**Marigold nods, and heads up to the house with her package under her arm.**

**“And wipe that mud off your feet, young lady!” Her mother calls after her, staying to gather the rest of the mail.**

**Marigold steps into the foyer of her house, and wipes off her boots on the doormat.**

**The foyer is large, panelled in a lovely dark wood, with twin staircases curling up to a balcony hanging above. Through the twin staircases, the kitchen is visible, with a view of the courtyard.**

**She sighs and kicks her boots off onto a shoe rack, heading for a door in the side, down the staircase, back to her basement area, and into her room.**

**She sits down on her bed, and grabs the ghost, hugging it tight.**

**Stupid mom.**

**The ghost’s name is Aiden Spooks, by the way. Or sometimes just Mr. Spooks.**

**After moping for a while, she feels a little better, and gathers her package to start getting things installed.**

**She goes back into the main basement, taking Mr. Spooks with her.**

**Before she starts, she gets her chat open.**

**\- You Messaged** **Riven_Widok** **-**

**JR: ...**

**JR: Seriously, get up.**

**\- You Stopped Messaging** **Riven_Widok** **-**

**No answer. Grr.**

**Ok. She digs into her box and pulls out the manual, and flips through it.**

**Inventory system, installing the game, blah blah blah, ok GOT IT!**

**She pulls out the host disk and installs it. It’s done in about two minutes.**

**...That’s a lie, no it isn’t.**

**...15%...16%...17%...**

**COME ON, HURRY UP.**

**A notification goes off on her phone. Looks like Riven’s online and she’s playing... Gears of War 11.**

**How does something that dumb sounding get ten sequels?**

**\- You Messaged** **Riven_Widok** **-**

**JR: Ok, I KNOW you’re online.**

**JR: I can SEE you’re playing that dumb shootemup!!**

**JR: Rivennn you prooooomiiiiised!!**

**\- You Stopped Messaging** **Riven_Widok** **-**

**Still no answer. BUT! The group chat goes off.**

**\- Group Message with** **Riven_Widok** **,** **BabylonCrusader** **,** **CubistMetamorph** **, & ** **HollowSeiyaJin** **-**

**HS: lol**

**HS: Morn**

**BC: Hey, Jackie**

**JR: Guess what?????????????**

**JR: Today is?????????????**

**BC: The 16th anniversary of the date the mayans predicted the world would end?**

**HS: Omg, you fuckin nerd**

**JR: um**

**JR: No. Not that**

**JR: It’s the day SBURB alpha comes out!!!**

**HS: Oh shit!**

**HS: You’re right!**

**HS: Did anyone else pre-order**

**BC: I think we all did**

**BC: I can’t speak for Cubie, though, sicne she isn’t here.**

**BC: *since**

**HS: We should totally set up a server and play it together**

**JR: Riv’s on, I’ll ask her if she did, and make her get installing it.**

**BC: I’m gonna go see if my mail came yet**

**HS: Sayonara**

**\- End Of Group Message -**

**...How much closer to being done is it??**

**...19%.**

**Marigold huffs at her colossal computer.**

**Just as she’s about to go pick out a book, Riven messages her back.**

**-** **Riven_Widok** **Messaged You -**

**RW: jfc, Jackie, chill.**

**RW: What, are you gonna get on my case about my suddenly being an old hag?**

**JR: Wait.**

**JR: That’s TODAY?**

**JR: Omg happy birthday!!**

**RW: Yeah, yeah.**

**RW: What do you want?**

**JR: It’s THE DAY.**

**RW: Jackie.**

**RW: What the hell are you talking about?**

**JR: You know the game we’ve been talking about forEVER in the mainchat? The alpha finally comes out today!**

**JR: They said they were gonna send copies out to everyone who pre-ordered!!**

**JR: Aren’t you EXCITED! We finally get to try!!**

**RW: Oh.**

**RW: Yeah, I guess you’re right.**

**RW: I wonder where my copy is...**

**JR: Better go find it.**

**JR: We’re putting together a party for it, it’s gonna be GREAT.**

**RW: I’m totally in.**

**RW: I just.**

**RW: Gotta find the damn game first.**

**JR: Well hurry up, OK?**

**JR: We’re already getting things set up, and we need your Game Address or**

**JR: something.**

**-** **Riven_Widok** **Stopped Messaging You -**

**Mari huffs. Riven’s so scatterbrained, sometimes. Bet she forgot to even preorder the game, and now she’s panicking, trying to get an alpha before it’s too late.**

**...By the way, 19.025%.**

**Le Sigh.**

**Suddenly, a popup appears!**

**-** **SterlingCouture** **Has Messaged You -**

**SC: Good morning, Mari.**

**JR: Hayyyy!**

**JR: What’s up?**

**JR: You’ve been really quiet lately.**

**SC: Things have been busy lately.**

**SC: I wanted to ask you.**

**SC: You’re still having those dreams, right?**

**SC: About the black and purple castle?**

**JR: Now that you mention it**

**JR: No, actually**

**JR: They were so common I kinda just forgot they were there**

**JR: I think**

**JR: I think they stopped about a month ago.**

**SC: That’s weird.**

**SC: But your dreams were weird anyway.**

**SC: What are you up to?**

**JR: nothing too special**

**JR: Hey, I just thought of something**

**JR: A couple friends in another chat are trying to start this game, but we need another person**

**JR: You in?**

**JR: I’ll send you an invite!**

**SC: Oh. I’m sorry, Mari, I can’t.**

**SC: I’m far too busy this week.**

**SC: You know how it can get.**

**JR: Yeh. I know.**

**JR: Hey I think I hear mom calling me.**

**JR: I gotta go!**

**JR: Talk later!**

**SC: Bye, Mari.**

**\- You Stopped Messaging** **SterlingCouture** **-**

**Marigold slides back in her chair. Sure enough, she hears her mother calling her upstairs.**

**Well. Breakfast time.**

**Gabe** **== > ****Play Around With The Menu**

**This boy stands in the middle of his room. He’s around fourteen, with a round face, and short red hair. He’s a little overweight, and shorter than average. He has a band-aid on his cheek, and his arms are covered in yellowing bruises.**

**He hastily rolls down his sleeves, covering his arms.**

**You don’t need to see that.**

**He’s dressed in worn, dark jeans and a light-grey hoodie with a rip in the left shoulder, and a stain of some kind across the front.**

**He forgets what the stain is from, but it’s been there forever. It won’t wash out.**

**His room is in stark contrast to his appearance, however. For one thing: it’s tidy.**

**There’s a simple wooden desk in one corner of the room, where a dented laptop rests, busy installing SBURB. A bookshelf is next to it, containing mostly historical fiction, young adult fantasy, and history books.**

**His bed is against the opposite wall, neatly made, with a patterned bedspread with swords and shields on it, over a weighted blanket.**

**There are two windows, one next to the desk, and the other behind the header of the bed. Across the room is a sliding closet, currently closed.**

**The boy himself is** **Gabriel Paladin** **. He is presently homeschooled by his mother, Merideth, and has been over the past few months, thanks to... something on the news. He can’t remember what it was.**

**She’s always been a little paranoid, but Gabe doesn’t mind. It’s actually kind of nice, not having to go to school to learn.**

**He takes a look outside the window, across the snowy landscape, staring out at the blanket-covered grounds surrounding his home.**

**His room is on the third floor, of a massive mansion-like building.**

**In fact, he and his mother live in the top floor of a museum, which his mother curates. Gabe is quite proud of this. Not many kids can claim they live in a museum.**

**He stares out at the snow covered gardens, statues, and parking lots, now closed for the season.**

**He likes looking at the parking lot before they plow. Everything looks soft and pillowy.**

**As he stares, his phone goes off.**

**-** **HollowSeiyaJin** **Has Messaged You -**

**HS: Hey**

**HS: You got the game up yet?**

**BC: No, not yet**

**HS: How far along is it?**

**BC: About 60%**

**BC: Started installing it earlier**

**HS: I’ve already got mine working.**

**HS: I’ve been playing with the inventory shit, with those cards.**

**BC: This is the ‘Array Modus’ that came with the game?**

**HS: Yea.**

**HS: I think you can use em as long as it’s over 30% loaded.**

**HS: Oh, yeah, apparantly, we have to decide hosting rotations.**

**BC: What’s that?**

**HS: Ok, uh. You ever play The Sims?**

**BC: ...I’ve played Sid Meier’s Civilization XIV.**

**HS: Uh.**

**HS: Animal Crossing?**

**BC: Nope. Played Fire Emblem, though. I know they’re the same publisher... Are they anything alike?**

**HS: Oh boy**

**HS: Uh.**

**HS: Terraria?**

**HS: StarBound?**

**HS: Minecraft???**

**BC: ...A little bit of Minecraft**

**HS: How much?**

**BC: Couple hours maybe?**

**BC: I got kinda bored with it, couldn’t come up with anything cool to make.**

**HS: Ok good enough**

**HS: We really need to work on exposing you to cooler stuff, my dude.**

**BC: I’m good thanks**

**BC: I’m not really into the anime rpg stuff you’re into**

**HS: I still think you should give one of them a go.**

**HS: I don’t think they’re at all what you’re expecting**

**HS: ANYWAY.**

**HS: Conversations for another time**

**HS: the manual says SBURB works generally like this:**

**HS: One player, the ‘Host’, can edit the surrounding area of the other, the ‘Client’, using an interface menu**

**HS: Stuff like adding walls, changing rooms, and placing special game machinery**

**HS: All through an interface on their computer.**

**HS: The ‘Client’ gathers resources that the ‘Host’ uses for shit, by adventuring around and beating up underlings and finding treasure, and shit like that.**

**HS: And the reason we have to have to have more than four people**

**HS: Is because the ‘Client’ player for one ‘Host’, also becomes the ‘Host’ for the next ‘Client’ down the line**

**HS: Until it all comes back around to the first ‘Host’**

**BC: I think I get it**

**BC: So how do we decide who hosts for who?**

**HS: Well.**

**HS: Riv’s gonna host for Cubie and she’s also gonna make a dummy player, so**

**HS: Presumably, it’s gonna go Riv > Dummy > Cubie**

**BC: Ok**

**HS: I want to host for Riv.**

**HS: You can host for me, and Jackie can host for you!**

**BC: Sounds like a plan, I guess**

**HS: So Jackie > You > Me > Riv > dummy > Cubie**

**HS: And then Cubie will host for Jackie.**

**BC: Cool**

**BC: So what’s the goal?**

**BC: What do we do?**

**HS: The manual kinda stops after describing the basics**

**HS: It shows a picture of this thing it calls a ‘KernelSprite’**

**HS: Apparently once we get to a certain point in the game, they’re supposed to guide us further on.**

**BC: Huh**

**BC: This thing is pretty involved...**

**HS: Yea. It’s dope.**

**HS: How far along is the installation?**

**BC: It’s only been two minutes.**

**BC: 61%**

**BC: Honestly, I’m surprised it even works on this computer at all it's kind of old**

**HS: Okay, we should be able to get some stuff to work and try it out.**

**HS: I’ve already done all this, ofc, but we should get you familiarized with the inventory system**

**HS: Try opening the menu**

**BC: It’s. It’s still installing, Hollow**

**BC: I can’t open anything**

**HS: Yeah, you should be able to.**

**HS: It says if you like... Raise your hand in front of you, like you’re swiping up on a touch screen**

**HS: Then it should open.**

**BC: Open where??**

**HS: Open in front of you.**

**HS: Like a hologram**

**Gabriel frowns at his phone. He goes over and sits on his bed, and flicks his arm up just to try it.**

**BC: Nothing’s happening, Hollow**

**BC: Maybe we should wait until the game finishes installing?**

**HS: You must not be doing it right.**

**HS: The manual says do it with feeling.**

**HS: Try it like you were a kid, trying to use the Kamehameha.**

**BC: I don’t... I’ve never done that. Who does that. Nobody**

**BC: I don’t even like Dragon Ball Z**

**HS: Every kid has done it.**

**HS: Or something like it.**

**HS: Hadouken?**

**HS: Power rangers poses?**

**HS: C’mon, baby, give me something to work with here**

**HS: Ew ok, nevermind**

**HS: Never callign you ‘baby’ again**

**BC: Yeah, please... don’t**

**HS: i was trying to go for like**

**HS: You know how we sometimes call each other by nicknames of our usernames**

**HS: Like how we call CubistMetamorph cubie, and how I’m Hollow?**

**HS: Nevermind, doesn’t matter**

**HS: Not happening again.**

**HS: So. Opening the menu.**

**HS: You have to do it with feeling.**

**HS: Like, what about**

**HS: Oh!**

**HS: I know!**

**HS: You like knights and shit right?**

**BC: ...I have been known to**

**HS: Do it like you’re trying to draw Excalibur**

**HS: You know, Sword in the Stone?**

**BC: That was Caliburn, actually. The Sword in the Stone was Caliburn. Excalibur was actually given to Arthur by Nimue, the Lady of the Lake, supposedly. What was impressive about Excalibur wasn’t even the sword itself anyway, but its scabbard. Plus, there’s actually a lot of debate about whether Caliburn was actually the sword’s real name, or if it was actually a gaelic sword named Claiomh Solais.**

**HS: Just open the stupid menu, nerd.**

**BC: Ok, ok, fine**

**Gabe sighs. He reluctantly waves at the air.**

**To his surprise, the menu does appear, floating in front of him.**

**Gabe nearly falls off his bed in surprise.**

**No, wait. He does fall off his bed, through the menu, and onto the floor in shock, instantly dispelling the menu!**

**Gabe picks himself up, and dusts himself off, thankful no one saw that.**

**He gingerly puts his hand out again, and waves it, summoning the holographic menu again.**

**It floats in midair, with a couple different layers to it, like something out of Tron, or maybe like Iron Man’s workshop in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.**

**What he’s looking at now shows 12 images of blue cards, like the Captchalogue cards that were in the package They’re organized in three rows of four cards each. On either side is a large triangle that would seem to indicate that there’s another page.**

**His phone goes off again, nearly flooring him a second time.**

**HS: You open it yet?**

**Why is the volume so loud, suddenly??**

**BC: Yeah**

**BC: I pulled it up**

**BC: How does it even do that? What kind of technology makes this possible? Last I checked, my computer didn’t have hologram projectors in it**

**HS: Dude, what?**

**HS: That’s so cool**

**BC: Haven’t you done this already?**

**HS: I MEAN**

**HS: Yeah, I’ve totally done it before.**

**HS: Of course.**

**HS: I’m just still**

**HS: So amazed at how freakin cool it is.**

**BC: Uh. Okay**

**BC: So what am I looking at?**

**HS: That’s your Sylladex, it always brings that up first.**

**HS: I think you don’t even have to wave your arm, once you’ve figured it out**

**HS: Like you can just will the menu to appear, or something.**

**Gabe frowns. He looks back at the menu. He thinks about it closing.**

**It vanishes completely, as if it were never there.**

**“...huh.”** **He opens up the menu again, this time just by thinking about it.**

**He closes and opens it a few more times, just to be sure.**

**BC: That’s really weird.**

**BC: I don’t understand how it’s doing that, how is it doing that**

**HS: So, what Modus do you have?**

**HS: Oh**

**HS: Right**

**HS: You said already**

**HS: Array, right**

**BC: Yeah, Array**

**HS:** **Weird. I got Array, too.**

**HS:** **I wonder if there are other Moduses**

**HS:** **Modii?**

**HS:** **Modusi?**

**HS:** **Moduseses?**

**BC: Focus, Hollow**

**HS: Right.**

**HS: Sorry.**

**HS: Array Modus**

**HS: Says here that Array Modus is the default**

**HS: It says you can**

**HS: ‘Store and retrieve any object on any card at any time.’**

**HS: Within reasonable limits**

**HS: Like there’s a size limit**

**HS: And a weight limit**

**HS: Like you can’t pick up a car**

**BC: Pick up?**

**BC: I can’t pick up a car normally, what are you talking about**

**HS: Oh, yeah, you can store items in the your cards**

**HS: I think you have to put them into the menu**

**HS: Like you just shove them into the hologram menu card**

**HS: Just cram it right in there.**

**HS: Try it.**

**Gabe shrugs and stands up, going over to his bookshelf. He scans it for a bit...**

**Then picks out a copy of The Lord Of The Rings. One of those trilogy editions, with all three books in one volume.**

**BC: So I just push it into the image of the card on the menu screen?**

**HS: Um.**

**HS: Yea**

**HS: Pretty sure.**

**...pretty sure? Well. It’s a good thing Gabe has the individual volumes as well as this version, in case he ends up throwing it out of his window because of this menu. Or something like that.**

**Gabe carefully holds the book out, pushing it against the first image of a Captchalogue card.**

**To his surprise, the book is gently pulled into the card, and appears on the white background as an image.**

**Gabe wonders if...**

**He reaches out and touches the image, tentatively. The book falls out, landing in his hand.**

**Okay, that’s pretty neat.**

**He puts the book back in the card for now.**

**BC: I don’t know whether I should still be surprised or just accept this weirdness at this point**

**HS: What happened?**

**HS: It went into the card?**

**BC: Yeah, it went in**

**HS: That’s so cool**

**HS: Wait, wait**

**HS: Check your cards!**

**HS: The physical cards that came in the box!**

**Gabriel takes the small deck out of his pocket. There, on the first card, is the picture of the LotR book.**

**BC: Okay, I’m gonna stop wondering what’s happening, and just accept that this is neat now.**

**Gabe flips the card over. There’s some kind of pattern on it, made up of squares. Like a wavy, distorted, multicolored, QR code.**

**BC: Hey what’s this pattern thing on the back?**

**HS: Oh, that.**

**HS: Hang on uhhhhh**

**HS: That’s called a ‘Scanalog’ Code.**

**HS: It changes based on what’s stored in the card. You’re supposed to be able to use them for**

**HS: Something called ‘Alchemy’?**

**HS: No idea how that works.**

**HS: The game manual doesn’t mention that**

**HS: And you can’t edit the back of the card or anything**

**HS: Weird.**

**BC: What?**

**HS: The manual says that SBURB used to use cards with 8 character Captcha codes**

**HS: Captchalogue Cards**

**HS: But it says that’s been changed now, so that it used the entire back of the card, like a QR code?**

**HS: Scanalog Cards, is what these are called.**

**BC: That makes sense i guess?**

**BC: Weird that they’d talk about the game’s development progress in the manual.**

**HS: Some devs like to do that. It’s like a neat insight into game design.**

**BC: Yeah, but... It’s a beta... There’s no reason to put updates in the manual of a beta. You put updates in the change logs, or whatever. Right?**

**HS: Yeah**

**HS: Well**

**HS: I dunno**

**HS: Keep looking at the menu, there’s more cool stuff.**

**Gabriel pockets his phone and goes back to the menu.**

**He first swipes to the left, onto a menu screen labelled “CHARACTER” with a tiny caricature sprite of himself, a set of stats, two empty boxes, a small box of text labelling his sprite as a “** **Lv. 1 Placacious Pudge** **”, and a larger, green box that looks vaguely like one of the Scanalog Cards, except it says “Strife Specibus”.**

**Oh boy, there’s a lot to unpack here.**

**First, the sprite. It was weirdly accurate, save for the art style and obvious lack of arms. It even got the stain and rip on his hoodie. Nevermind the holograms, there was something deeply unsettling about the sprite, as nothing had scanned him, and his computer didn’t even have a webcam. The title next to it was clearly a cheap jab at his appearance. Why go through all the trouble of generating his likeness just to insult him?**

**Then there were the stats:**

**STR: 100**

**INT: 20**

**AGI: 40**

**VIT: 100**

**WIL: 100**

**LCK: 5**

**What? Setting aside what these meant, why do they look like end-game stats? Wasn’t he supposed to get the opportunity to build his character?**

**He swiped the menu left again, coming to rest on a menu labelled “STATUS”. This one was clearly for the nerdy stuff, the numbers. Gabe can see bars labelled “HP” and “SP” here, as well as a bunch of other stuff. Those must be equivalent to health and mana. But the most noticeable thing were the seven empty boxes on the left of the menu. Clearly something was supposed to be in them.**

**Gabe frowns and takes out his phone again.**

**BC: OK, Hollow, real funny.**

**BC: How long did it take you?**

**HS: ?**

**HS: How long did what take me?**

**HS: What are you talking about?**

**BC: The Sprite art!**

**BC: You really need to stop doing the cyber stalking thing, since I assume that’s how you found out what I look like.**

**BC: Didn’t Riv already chew you out for it?**

**HS: Dude.**

**HS: It was ONE TIME.**

**HS: It was all a big misunderstanding anyway!**

**HS: I told you already, I just looked her up and found some of her accounts on different forums and websites and followed her!**

**HS: Not like followed her followed her, but like just regular followed her!**

**HS: I didn’t know she wasn’t gonna be okay with that!**

**HS: It’s not like I was looking for those selfies or her personal information or anything like that!**

**BC: Listen, Hollow, there’s a sprite art character here in this menu that looks _exactly_ like me.**

**BC: There’s no way that someone didn’t do this, and the only person who would have any reason to would be you.**

**HS: I’m telling you, man, I don’t know anything about this.**

**BC: Sure, ok.**

**BC: Look, man, I’m not judging you, just stop it.**

**HS: IT.**

**HS: WASN’T.**

**HS: ME.**

**HS: I don’t know what to tell you other than that!**

**BC: We’ll figure this out later. I can hear my mom pulling in. I should go help her unload groceries.**

**\- You Stopped Messaging** **HollowSeiyaJin** **-**

**Gabe tucks his phone away and swipes the menu into the oblivion it came from. He gets up and checks the window to see his mom’s truck crunching up the snow as she pulls past the main building around to the back, where the family garage is. He rushes outside his room, across the hall, and down the stairs.**

**He makes it to the garage just in time to see his mom’s truck pulling in.**

**It rolls up and she steps out.**

**Merideth Paladin is a woman somewhere around her mid-forties, but with a shock of red hair, just like Gabe, but curly. She looks exactly like you’d expect for a woman named Merideth, if she grew up, became a mom, and got a job as a lumberjack.**

**She is not a lumberjack, for the record, she just happens to be wearing one of those red flannel jackets that makes her look like one.**

**She leans down and kisses Gabe on the forehead, embracing him momentarily.**

**Gabe grabs some of the reusable grocery bags from the backseat and helps his mother carry them upstairs to where they live.**

**“What have you been up to today?” Merideth asks as they unpack and put away groceries.**

**“The chat I’m in is thinking of playing a game together. I’ve been trying to get it installed.”**

**“Oh, neat! What’s it called?” Merideth asks, stuffing a pack of wraps into the bread drawer.**

**“It’s uh... ‘S-Burb’ I think.”**

**“You know... That online chat has been really good for you. You seem so much more cheerful since you started to talk to them. I knew online friends would work out for you.”**

**“Mom, you hated the idea when I started talking to them. You said the only people who hang out in chatrooms are pedophiles and drug dealers.”**

**“Okay, so I was a _little_ off.” Merideth opens the fridge and crouches behind the door. “Hand me that bag of apples, would you?”**

**Gabe does as asked.** **“So... Do you have more work to do?”**

**“I have a few more calls to make. About finding a new home for that stag exhibit, and to a few travelling exhibits to see what months we can book things in.”**

**“Aww. You’re getting rid of the stag? I like the stag...”**

**“Gabe, honey, we have to make room for the Witch Trial exhibit. People seem really into the creepy side of history these days.”**

**“I guess...”** **Gabe shrugs.**

**“So, why do you ask? Did you have something planned?” Merideth pops her head up over the fridge door.**

**“I was hoping we could watch more of that show together.”**

**“What, Merlin? I thought you didn’t like it.”**

**“At first I didn’t, but it’s been growing on me.”**

**Merideth stands, closes the fridge, and pats down her pockets. “Oh drat! I left my wallet at the store. I have to go back out.”**

**“Want me to come with you?”**

**“No. No, I... Don’t you have a thing to do with your friends?” She looks concerned about something.**

**“Uh. No. It’s still installing, so I just have to wait for it.”**

**“I still don’t want you coming with me.” She says, suddenly assertive.**

**“What? Why not?”**

**“Because the world is being a scary place right now, honey. I want you to stay home if you can.”**

**“What’s wrong, mom? What has you worried like this? Is this why you pulled me out of school?”**

**“There’s this disease going around, and they don’t fully understand what it is, or how to cure it, but they know it’s airborne, and—”**

**“Mom, you can’t believe everything you read on those PTA conspiracy theory blogs.”**

**“This isn’t like that. This is real.” Merideth insists. “A fifteen year old girl was taken into the ICU a week ago and died two days later.”**

**She puts her arms out and hugs Gabe tightly.**

**“Listen, I know I can be a little crazy sometimes, maybe a little tin-foil-hat-ey. But I don’t want to put you in danger if I don’t have to, okay? You’re my little angel, Gabriel. I can’t lose you.”**

**“...Okay.”** **Gabe pats his mother’s back sympathetically.** **“I’ll stay home... But what about you?”**

**“I still have to go get my wallet. I put a box of medical masks in the truck, I have a box of alcohol wipes, and I wiped everything down before putting them into the truck. But you shouldn’t come with me unless you _have_ to.”**

**“...Isn’t this a bit of an overreaction, then, if you’re prepared?”**

**“Maybe. But why should I put both of us in harm’s way if I don't have to?”**

**“I guess you have a point.”** **Gabe shrugs.**

**“I’ll be right back. An hour, at most. Okay?”**

**“Okay.”** **Gabe nods.**

**“I love you.” She tells him.**

**“Love you too, mom.”** **Gabe says as she leaves.**

**Gabe heads into his room and checks on the installer. 70%.**

**Nothing to do now but wait...**

**Mari** **== > ** **Retrieve Shovel**

**Mari slides back in her chair. Sure enough, her mother is calling her.**

**She turns back to her computer and pulls up the floor plan to her house.**

**In the coat room off of the main foyer, there’s a gun safe, which contains the personal effects and valuables mistakenly left behind by her parents’ guests, and presumably, a gun in case of zombies. Since it _is_ a gun safe. If there’s anywhere Mari’s mother has stashed her shovel, it will be there.**

**Now, there are two complications to this. The first being that the cost room is normally locked when there are no visitors, and Mari does not have the key, nor does she know how to pick the lock.**

**Fortunately, Mari knows of an air duct from one of the guest rooms above it, which can be used to drop down into the room.**

**The other major complication is that the gun safe itself is locked with a four digit keycode, which her father set up to automatically change daily, depending on the day of the week.**

**Fortunately, Mari has kept a log of important four-digit numbers in an attempt to open the gun safe and see the wonders inside.**

**She had been trying for ages to learn something about the strangers that sometimes visited her house. Sometimes a rich couple from France would show up, or a pair of people Mari suspected to be famous medical scientists, but had no proof. Every once in a while, an old man from Russia with an intimidating air would come, often unannounced.**

**Her parents never liked to talk about the scary russian man.**

**Today was Monday, and Mari had tried all of the possible codes for Monday but one, meaning the code could only be 0451.**

**So, the plan would be, after breakfast, to sneak up to the guest room, go down the air duct and into the coat room, open the gun safe, take her shovel, and then leave. The door had a fancy relocking system if it was opened from the inside, so that nobody got trapped inside by accident, so she would be safe.**

**This plan is foolproof!**

**She closes the floorplan and the note with 10,000 codes, and scurries upstairs, through the foyer, and into the kitchen, with the attached sunroom for family dining. For guests there was a much larger dining room, and the sunroom would be closed off.**

**In the sunroom, A small, four-person table is already set with three place settings.**

**Her mother, Myrtle, sits at one end of the table, scrolling through something on a tablet. Meanwhile her father, Sullivan, is in the kitchen by the table.**

**“Morning!”** **Mari greets her family.**

**“There you are. Sit down, your eggs are going to get cold.” Sullivan tells her over his shoulder.**

**Mari flops down in her chair, and sullivan puts a plate full of eggs, bacon, and french toast in front of her.**

**“Mmm! Thanks dad!”** **Mari grins.**

**Her mother puts the tablet away, and gives Mari a stern look. “Don’t flop. You’re going to break the chair.”**

**“Right! Right. Sorry.”** **Mari grabs the syrup, and dumps some on her french toast.** **“So... Do you have a lot of work today?”**

**Step one. Gauge the scenario. If her parents aren’t busy, they’re more likely to keep an eye on her, which pushes back on the Great Shovel Heist.**

**“I believe we have a few calls to make. There are a few important services we need to make sure go well, in one of the Russian branches, and another in the Americas.” Sullivan says. “Unfortunately, we have to go to Cairo this evening.”**

**“I was thinking we should do something as a family tonight, since I’ve been busy with school until now.”**

**“That’s unfortunate timing. We can discuss another time to do something as a family later, over lunch.” Myrtle suggests. “We may have an engagement to take care of... By the way, Mari, You saw the mail this morning. Did they send up your report card for this term yet?”**

**Oooh boy. Grades are a thing.**

**To say Mari was a bad student would be an understatement. She had all the focus of a weasel with ADHD.**

**“They um. Haven’t, no. Buuuuut! I’ve been doing well in sciences, since we covered mostly chemistry and biology this term.”**

**“All right. If it hasn’t been delivered by next week, we’ll check online. But Mari, if you get any Fs in anything, you know you’re grounded, right?” Myrtle says.**

**“Yeah. Yeah, I know.”** **Mari stares at the syrup sponging into the french toast.**

**Sullivan sighs. “It’s not that we want to be mean, Mari. It’s just that we’re worried. Your mother and I know you’re very smart. Those textbooks you have in your room prove as much. And you did really well in school before--”**

**“Everything happened. Yeah, I know. I’m trying to do better... And the therapy is really helping, I just…”** **Mari frowns.** **“It’s so boring all the time! They never talk about the _fun_ parts of history or english, just the stupid stuff!”**

**“Well... As long as you’re trying.” Sullivan frowns. “That’s all we want from you.”**

**“I know.”** **Mari nods.**

**Mari starts digging in.**

**“Oh. Mari. I called the groundskeeper.” Myrtle says.**

**Mari nearly chokes.**

**What had her mother spoken to the groundskeeper about? The thought of her parents discovering her work fills her with dread. They already mildly disapprove of her studies of the occult. What would they think of her experiments?**

**If that groundskeeper spilled the beans about her work... Then Mari’s parents would definitely be hearing about his habit of sleeping off hangovers in the freshly dug graves.**

**“As it turns out, he did give you the shovel. I’m sorry I yelled at you over it.”**

**“So, I can have it back?”**

**“Yes.” Myrtle nods. “I’ll get it back for you after breakfast.”**

**“Yay! Thank you!”** **Mari grins.**

**Close call. Mari was worried she was going to have to ruin the groundskeeper for a second there.**

**“Just don’t make me regret it.”**

**“I won’t.”**

**“I’m serious. No more late-night sneaking around.”**

**“Yes, Ma’am.”**

**Mari** **< < ** **Shovel Get!**

**It is four years ago.**

**Mari crouches down on the edge of an open grave.**

**To her little four-foot-three brain, the six foot deep pit seems unreasonably deep.**

**It sits there, coldly, and emptily, ready for a service tomorrow. For someone to be put inside and have the dirt piled upon them, sealing them forever.**

**Most people here get cremated, so it’s not often there are fresh graves dug. Not everyone has the money for a proper burial.**

**Not that Mari understands money. But she does understand dirt. She understands that the hole in front of her is an uncommon occurance, though not so rare to be strange to her.**

**She shudders, as the cold air passes over here, whispering through the trees, almost like singing.**

**Her mind drifts, to the thought of what it must be like to be buried. In a small box, with dirt piled on top of her, packing down on her.**

**She shudders again, and shakes her head. She doesn’t want to think about that.**

**But she can’t look away from the indifferent pit in front of her.**

**“Something wrong?” The groundskeeper addresses her. His name is Bryce. “You probably shouldn’t be out this late. It’s approaching a dangerous time.”**

**“What do they do if they bury someone who’s still alive by accident?”** **Mari asks, not looking away from the pit.**

**“Depends. They used to have a number of systems for that. They used to have a bell you could ring from inside your coffin.” Bryce answers, leaning on his shovel. “Though... I don’t think they do that anywhere anymore. Medicine is supposed to be good enough to tell whether someone is really dead or not.”**

**“But people make mistakes. Medicine can’t be perfect.”** **Mari says.**

**“I think I’ve heard of someone being buried with a walkie-talkie.” Bryce suggests.**

**Mari shakes her head.** **“Batteries run out. What if they run out while you’re asleep?”**

**“I heard of a man installing a window to his grave, once. So that people could see inside and tell if he was still alive.”**

**“How can you be sure someone will notice? Wouldn’t your breath fog up the glass?”**

**Bryce remains quiet for a while.**

**Eventually he looks down at her, and grins. “I think I know. Wait here.”**

**He walks off, disappearing.**

**Mari goes back to staring at the pit.**

**“I’m not afraid of you.”** **She lies.**

**It doesn’t answer her.**

**“You can’t scare me.”** **She says again, a little louder.**

**She’s not fooling anyone.**

**She feels the imaginary weight press down on top of her, and starts to hyperventilate, as panic sets in.**

**“It’s not real! It’s not!”** **She puts her hands over her ears, trying to drown out the imaginary sound of the dirt piling on top of her.**

**“Okay, back.” The sound of Bryce’s voice snaps her out of it. “It took me a while to find it, since I never use it...”**

**Mari looks up to see him holding out a tiny shovel to her, roughly two feet long.**

**“A... Shovel?”** **She asks.**

**“If you get buried, you can use it to dig your way out.” Bryce says.**

**Mari thinks about it for a few minutes, but can’t come up with any flaws for this idea. Which means it’s a perfect idea, of course.**

**She takes the shovel gingerly, and looks it over.**

**“And I can just... Have this?”** **She asks.**

**“It’s too small for me. I won’t use it.” Bryce answers.**

**“Oh, thank you! You’re the best!”**

**“You’re welcome. Now go on, get back inside. You shouldn’t be awake this late.” Bryce urges her.**

**Mari nods and runs home.**

**Mari** **== > ** **Retrieve Shovel, But Actually This Time**

**Mari watches her mother punch in the code. 0451. Gotta remember that for later.**

**She opens the safe, to reveal an old shoebox with a few pieces of jewelry, and a ring of keys, two cellphones, five pairs of glasses (four in cases, and one loose), a pretty green scarf, a plush elephant, a fidget spinner, and Mari’s Shovel.**

**Mari is surprised to see the absence of a firearm in the safe, as she’d always assumed her parents kept a shotgun.**

**You know, in case of zombies.**

**Myrtle takes the shovel and turns to Mari.**

**“Okay. Marigold, before I give you this back I want you to promise me something.”**

**“Hmm?”** **Mari snaps to attention, with a half-finished backup zombie plan that now doesn’t involve guns.**

**“You need to promise me you’re not going to go around digging up things you’re not supposed to, all right?”**

**“Okay.”** **Mari nods.**

**“Marigold.”**

**“Okay! I promise!”** **Mari says, exasperated.**

**Mari’s mother hands her shovel to her, and she grabs it.**

**“Digging holes is the groundskeeper’s job.” Myrtle says. “I don’t want you exposing yourself to anything unsavory.”**

**“Okay. I understand.”**

**“Okay, you can get back to your friends now.” Myrtle says. “You’ve got that new game you’re trying out with them today, right?”**

**“Mhm! It just came out!”**

**“All right. You have fun. Your father and I need to go inspect a new property in Cairo. So we’ll be out this afternoon, and maybe for the next few days or so.”**

**“Okay.”**

**“The maids and the groundskeeper will still be here if you need anything, all right?”**

**“Got it!”**

**“All right, now go to your thing. You don’t want to keep people waiting.” Myrtle tells her. “It’s bad form.”**

**“Okay! Love you!”** **Mari gives her mother a quick hug, and then runs back downstairs.**

**By the time she plunks down in front of her computer, she has at least three new bruises and is out of breath. It’s a long staircase.**

**There’s a new message waiting for her.**

**-** **Riven_Widok** **Messaged You -**

**RW: Jackie**

**RW: I found the game, but**

**RW: There are two disks apparently?**

**RW: Which do I need to install first?**

**RW: Jackie?**

**RW: .**

**RW: Great.**

**RW: Figures once I need you, you’re nowhere to be found.**

**JR: OKAT**

**JR: i’m back.**

**RW: Took you long enough.**

**RW: I sorted it out, don’t need your help anymore.**

**JR: Great!**

**JR: Do you have evertything installed yet?**

**JR: *rvrythung.**

**RW: Yeah, just about.**

**RW: I managed to set up an unlisted archive for Cubie to get the data on the disks.**

**RW: Everything’s installed on my computer, I’m just going through the process of remote-installing the archive on my mother’s computer at her house so we have a dummy player.**

**JR: Wow! That sounds so complicated, how do you do all this stuff!**

**RW: It’s not that complicated**

**RW: It’s kind of like,**

**JR: Nevermind, I don’t actually care that much!**

**JR: So you gonna be ready to play soon?**

**RW: I can be ready to play now, actually. My computer’s just working on the remote install, and it can do that in the background.**

**RW: It’s beefy enough.**

**JR: Great!**

**JR: Do you want to host for me or the other way around?**

**RW: I don’t know what that means.**

**JR: Didn’t you read the manual?**

**RW: no.**

**RW: I did not read the manual.**

**RW: Who do you think I am, some kind of filthy casual?**

**JR: Whatev, just pick an option.**

**RW: Fine. Then you host.**

**JR: Ok! Then you need to start the Client program first.**

**JR: Once you’re on the server, I should be able to find you really easy**

**RW: I don’t have to create a lobby or something first?**

**JR: Don’t think so!**

**RW: How do they keep other people from getting into our game, then?**

**JR: Dunno, but we should be fine.**

**JR: They only sent out the beta to 12 people.**

**RW: Seems like a security issue. Maybe they’ll fix it later.**

**JR: Quit stalling and open the client program.**

**RW: Okay.**

**\- You Stopped Messaging** **Riven_Widok** **-**

**Mari closes the chat and boots up the freshly-installed Client program.**

**The loading screen fades in, a lime-green spirograph on a blue background with white clouds.**

**Mari bounces slightly in her chair, excited, as the bar moves, and some of the tooltips speed by, too fast to be legible.**

**It loads surprisingly quickly, and the loading bar fades away, to be replaced by a the SBURB logo and menu.**

**There are five buttons. ‘SINGLE PLAYER’, which is grayed out, and when Mari clicks it, does nothing, ‘MULTIPLAYER’, ‘SETTINGS’, and ‘QUIT’, which is also grayed out.**

**Mari clicks MULTIPLAYER, and it brings up another, smaller spirograph as a cute little loading icon.**

**CONNECTING TO SERVER, PLEASE WAIT...**

**And we’re back to waiting. This time, without pancakes.**

**Mari suddenly remembers that she can use the game menu right now!**

**She swipes it up and looks around the different menus.**

**Huh. There’s a cute sprite of her here.**

**Wait, No! It’s not cute at all! It’s definitely scary!**

**There are a bunch of numbers here that Mari doesn’t care about, and then a title,** **Spooky Scoundrel** **.**

**Fun, fun.**

**Then there’s the page with the cards on it. It looks like an inventory. Bet she could shove all kinds of fun stuff in there.**

**She reaches for her shovel and puts it onto one of the cards, which it disappears into.**

**So cool! Mari tries to crane her head to see behind the card, but the menu moves with her, so she can’t see behind it.**

**She taps the card, and her shovel falls out, gently into her hands.**

**She puts it back, for now.**

**What else can she stuff in her inventory?**

**She grabs Mr. Spooks off her computer and crams the plushie ghost into another card, and then enthusiastically slaps the face of the card as hard as she can!**

**Mr. Spooks shoots out the other side and bounces off her computer screen and comes back to bap her in the face with a soft *Pomf*.**

**Haha, awesome!**

**She gathers up the ghost plushie and puts him back in the card.**

**What else can she stuff in here?**

**She gets up and goes to her chemical set, and picks out a few fun chemicals. Then she opens up one of the cabinets below. Inside it is her secret stash: Several glass bottles with preserved human organs.**

**She picks out a heart and carefully sets it into one of the cards. Might need that later.**

**Better grab that brain, too. Definitely going to come in handy.**

**Just as she’s finished jamming the pickled brain in her sylladex, her computer bleeps at her.**

**Mari scrambles to go check it, and nearly trips over the corner of some of her equipment.**

**-** **Riven_Widok** **Messaged You -**

**RW: Helloo?**

**RW: Jackie, are we gonna do this or not?**

**JR: Yeah, it was connecting**

**RW: Wow, your pc is slow as shit**

**RW: What are you even using as a router, tesla towers?**

**JR: ...**

**JR: Maybe.**

**RW: Whatever, let’s just get going already.**

**Looks like the SBURB host is finally connected. Not including herself, four people are online.** **Riven_Widok** **,** **OpticalPopcorn** **,** **ParallelKrauzer** **, and** **MintPhantom** **.**

**Fun usernames. Guess her chat isn’t the only group who got this game.**

**She selects Riven’s username, and after another brief loading period, it loads in an isometric view of a hospital room with a white-haired girl in it.**

**JR: Oh, cool! I can see you!**

**RW: What**

**RW: How**

**JR: I dunno, I just have this weird corner view of your... Is that a hospital room?**

**RW: Yes and I don’t want to talk about it.**

**JR: Ok.**

**RW: So, what do we do?**

**JR: idk yet, lemme look around.**

**RW: Ok, let me paraphrase that**

**RW: What do I do?**

**JR: You can play around with your inventory stuff, get used to how that is.**

**RW: How**

**JR: I think you just will the menu into existance**

**RW: Wow. That was helpful.**

**RW: Smartass.**

**JR: I dunno! I just waved my arms around and it appeared!**

**Mari watches the white-haired girl turn away from Mari and flail her arms around. It looks like she’s trying to sarcastically demonstrate how flailing around doesn’t help.**

**It would be more effective if the menu didn’t actually appear in front of her.**

**JR: Wrong direction. I’m in a different corner.**

**RW: Oh, screw you.**

**JR: Ok, you goof around with that, I can check stuff out.**

**Mari closes the chat window, and inspects the game. The menu at the top has a few tabs labelled Move, Deploy, Build, and Navigate.**

**She picks Deploy first, and it brings up a menu of a couple different fun-looking machines. She mouses over them and sees a few of their names. Alchimiter, Sprite Dispenserator, a Premade Scanlog Card, and Training Dummy.**

**All of them are greyed out except for the Sprite Dispenserator.**

**Mari clicks on it, and it brings up a holographic image of it on her cursor, outlining the space it needs. There’s definitely not enough room in here.**

**Mari switches to the Move tab, thinking she can just move the exercise machine out of the way.**

**But to where??**

**She pauses for a minute to look at Riven, swiping around the menu.**

**JR: Cute sprite :)**

**JR: Not like mine.**

**JR: Mine is scary and awesome.**

**RW: Oh get over yourself.**

**Mari takes a closer look at the menu, looks like Riven’s class is ‘** **Bubble Bairn** **’. Cute.**

**JR: Hey I’m gonna move your dumb jock muscle machine, k?**

**RW: What? Why?**

**JR: Because it’s in the way, I need to put something down here.**

**RW: Why here??**

**JR: I dunno, feels right to put it in your room.**

**RW: Okay??**

**RW: Just... Don’t fuckin break anything.**

**JR: o7**

**Ok, wait. First she needs to figure out where to put it. She switches to the Navigation tab. Wow, this would be a lot more obnoxious if this user interface wasn’t so intuitive!**

**An arrow appears, pointing at the invisible wall facing her to what Mari assumes is the door to the hallway, and another icon appears in the top right of the interface, which looks like the camera flippy button on a phone. And finally, a slider along the right side of the screen with what she assumes are floor numbers.**

**She clicks the flippy icon and the room spins dizzyingly, letting her see the other two walls. And she can see the door the arrow was pointing at now! Fun!**

**She clicks the button furiously several more times, and watches the room spin, giggling to herself.**

**Ok, time to go find a spot to put the dumb exercise-mo-tron.**

**She clicks the arrow and the screen slides over into the hallway, hiding Riven’s room.**

**She heads up a floor using the slider, but all the rooms are covered in a thick layer of TV static, obscuring the content of the rooms. Mari clicks on it and it makes an angry buzzing noise at her.**

**JR: Hey, your upstairs is mad at me?**

**RW: What**

**JR: Your upstairs.**

**JR: It’s mad at me**

**RW: Saying it again doesn’t make it make more sense.**

**RW: WTF are you talking about.**

**JR: It’s all fuzzy and snowy.**

**RW: What.**

**JR: Maybe it’s because you’re not up there. Can you go up there so I can find out?**

**RW: No. I can’t. Door’s locked. Not allowed up there.**

**JR: Maybe it’s fuzzy because you can’t go there, then.**

**JR: Or haven’t been there?**

**RW: Why do you need to get up there?**

**JR: I told you, I’m gonna move your dumb jock machine!**

**RW: Ugh. Fine.**

**RW: Use the mail room at the end of the hall.**

**JR: Cool, TY!!**

**Mari heads back down to Riven’s floor, and heads up the hall, to the mail room.**

**Lots of crates lying around on a concrete floor, with a big garage door to, presumably the outside, maybe. And there’s that pile of smashed up glass and what used to be a game manual, over there. That at least explains why Riven is so clueless.**

**But there’s definitely enough space for the exercise machine in front of the garage door. Mari clicks back into Riven’s Room, and hovers her cursor over the exercise machine.**

**Riven, still playing with her menu, looks up, her eyes following the cursor as Mari picks up the exercise machine and moves it over to the door.**

**Looks like it’ll fit through, but just barely. She drags it over the arrow to the next room and--**

**The view slides into the hallway quickly, not letting Mari line the machine up, and smashing through the door, liberating it from it’s hinges with a loud crash.**

**RW: WHAT DID I JUST FUCKING TELL YOU**

**JR: ooooooops**

**JR: this interface takes some getting used to**

**JR: sorry**

**RW: It’s... fine. I’m sure I can get someone down here to fix it at some point.**

**RW: I hate having to call in work crews to fix shit, they make such a big deal out of everything.**

**JR: Maybe you’d better come with me to hold the mail room door open...**

**Riven comes out into the hall and bends over to pick up a rod that got knocked off the exercise machine in the crash, before heading down the hall and through the doors to the mail room.**

**Mari clicks the arrow and follows her in.**

**RW: Ok, I’ll open one door, you prop it open with a crate, and then you can open the other.**

**JR: Deal.**

**Their plan works flawlessly, and Mari soon has the exercise machine positioned in front of the garage door.**

**RW: Hey, real quick**

**JR: Hm?**

**RW: Think this sylladex thing can be used to hold dangerous objects?**

**JR: Yeah, prolly, since you don’t have to touch them to get them out, just the image on the card.**

**JR: And if you hit the card, you can throw stuff, so it might be fun to have somethin real dangerous.**

**RW: ...Sure, ok.**

**RW: Give me a hand with the broken canister and this wet mess.**

**JR: Your game manual?**

**RW: Yeah. I want to see if there’s gonna be some way to salvage it later on.**

**Riven opens up the menu, and then does her best to stand away from it.**

**RW: Try not to touch me with that shit.**

**JR: What did you even DO to it?**

**RW: I spilled shit on it.**

**RW: Is that somehow not obvious?**

**JR: Yeah, but I meant like**

**JR: Nevermind.**

**JR: Just hold still and don’t move.**

**Mari grabs the shards of glass and stuffs them into one of Riven’s cards, and the soaked manual into another.**

**She watches Riven close her menu.**

**RW: Ok. Cool. Thanks.**

**JR: YW!**

**RW: I’m gonna go back to trying to figure this system out.**

**JR: I’m gonna put that thing down, and then explore!**

**Mari works her way back into Riven’s room, where she takes out the Sprite Dispenserator, and is able to set it snugly into the area she just moved the exercise machine out of. It’s a perfect fit!**

**The machine itself is a big white machine that looks like a chimney with a cork in it, with a giant LCD display at the bottom, like a digital clock. The cork has the same spirograph logo on it as the loading screen, but this one is a deep blue.**

**As Riven is looking at it, three menu buttons pop up in front of the white haired girl.**

[BUILD TUTORIAL]

[COMBAT TUTORIAL]

[INVENTORY TUTORIAL]

**JR: Oh, cool! A tutorial!**

**JR: Now you can see all the information you missed from your nonexistant game manual that your game didn’t come with!**

**RW: Fuck no.**

**JR: Aw, why not!?**

**RW: Fucking hate tutorials.**

**RW: Give me a minute.**

**Riven goes over to her computer and mashes some buttons. Mari can’t see what she’s doing, but the menu buttons vanish quickly.**

**JR: Whoa, what was that??**

**RW: I wrote a program that skips game tutorials.**

**RW: Because fuck ‘em.**

**JR: Wow!!! So cool!!!**

**JR: Now we can just get right into the action!!!**

**Mari clicks on the ‘Dispenserator’, trying to yank out the cork, but nothing happens.**

**Well. Don’t know what to do with that, better move on and come back to it.**

**What does the rest of Riven’s floor look like?**

**Just as Mari is leaving Riven’s room, Riven walks in, with her menu up, and bumps into Mari’s cursor.**

**RW: be CAREFUL with that thing!**

**JR: Sorry!**

**Mari clicks into a few rooms, nearly identical to Riven’s, but without any furnishings. She goes up the hall, checking each room in turn, and then comes back down the other side.**

**They’re literally all carbon copies of Riven’s room but minus her desk and computer.**

**Nothing, nothing, nothing. Boring, boring, boring.**

**And then she enters the last room, the one across the hall. It’s the same as all the others, of course, that’s not the interesting bit.**

**What’s interesting is the girl on the bed inside. Or rather, the body of a girl. She’s definitely not breathing, and her skin is covered in patches of a rough, red rash. Her eyes are a milky white and stare blankly at the ceiling. Definitely dead. 100%.**

**Mari rubs her hands together, and grins. Perhaps she and Riven have something in common. It’d be interesting to pick her brain about it. Gotta play it cool though.**

**Mari clicks back into Riven’s room, to see Riven, looking over the Sprite Dispenserator curiously.**

**JR: Hey, uh. Riv?**

**RW: The fuck is this thing supposed to even DO?**

**RW: I can’t figure it out.**

**RW: I guess maybe something comes out of it? But I can’t imagine what.**

**RW: Or how to get the stupid top off.**

**JR: Riv, what’s up with the dead girl across the hall? You know her?**

**Smooth as glass.**

**Riven freezes, upon reading the words, and goes over to sit down, setting the 3ds aside.**

**Way to go, Mari.**

**Riven** **< <** **Relive The Trauma**

**It is Eleven years ago.**

**Katrina is sick. Rashes, rough and red, like old iron, erupted across her body overnight.**

**Her muscles lock up wherever it touches. After a day or two, the rust makes its way into her eyes, blinding her. It creeps down her throat, into her stomach making her ill. It spreads into her lungs, making it hard to breathe.**

**She can hear her parents arguing with doctors outside her room, shouting at them, and tries to visualise them to stay sane.**

**Her father is Marcus, an intense, dark-haired man, who looks like he once aspired to be Shadow The Hedgehog, but grew up and got a life. He stays quiet, and never raises his voice, but when he does speak, Katrina can feel the anger in his tone.**

**Her mother is Catherine, and she is the opposite. She is an elegant, aloof woman. Most of the shouting is coming from her, a prideful and stubborn woman.**

**Focusing on her parents’ voices, Katrina gathers that they’re upset for her. The doctor tells them there is no cure available, and Catherine demands that she find one. The doctor stammers incoherently, and Marcus quietly implies that they _want_ Katrina to die, so they can study her. The doctor grows increasingly flustered.**

**Catherine, now quiet, tells Marcus that if the doctors continue to be this useless, they will make the cure themselves.**

**Riven** **> > ** **A Death In The Family**

**It is Ten Years Ago.**

**Katrina is better. Sort of. Her parents have made her wear a thick plastic mask over her mouth and nose. It’s heavy and uncomfortable, and connected to a large, heavy tank that her father wheels around. It keeps her tethered, trapped at a set distance.**

**She is standing in front of an open casket. A mirror image of herself is inside. A palette swap, with black hair instead of white, and aqua eyes instead of purple. Her twin, her sister, Octavia. She’s dead.**

**And even though she barely understands what’s happening, Katrina knows it’s her fault.**

**She wasn’t better. She just wasn’t sick. When Octavia had gotten sick, Katrina had heard the word ‘Carrier’ a few times, and understood they were talking about herself.**

**Marcus Brandt moves to put a hand on Katrina’s shoulder, to comfort her, but hesitates, and pulls away when Catherine shakes her head at him.**

**Katrina stares at Octavia’s face. She can see the patches on her skin, where the Rust had consumed her sister, covered up, but still visible around the edges.**

**She turns away from the casket.**

**Riven** **> > ** **Quarantine**

**It Is Five Years Ago.**

**Katrina is curled up on her bed, shaking from the cold of the hospital room.**

**After the funeral, Katrina was moved to the basement of the hospital. She’s lived there ever since. “Q-Ward”, she was told to call it.**

**She calls it Hell.**

**They put other patients here to die. Other kids her age come down here, starting to suffer from the Rust.**

**Although she feels no danger and no pain for herself, and she’s able to sneak out of her room and make friends with other patients, none of them last long. Her friendships last a week at most, before her friends die. She’s usually not there to see it.**

**She quickly became fascinated with fiction, with stories. She loves being able to explore the world. Since, for her, leaving her ward is a fantasy.**

**In her dreams she sees the faces of the other kids who have come down here, staring back at her, covered in Rust. Even the ones she doesn’t remember, but she still sees them, some part of her brain remembers their faces. In her dreams, they blame her.**

**Sometimes she dreams about people she sees on TV, or in books. Real or fictional. She dreams about talking to them. She dreams about meeting them in person.**

**But when she touches them, she watches the rust spread out across their bodies, blooming from where her fingertips touch, and they scream at her.**

**Her idols beg her to stop doing this to them, beg her to have mercy, to let them live, but she has no control over the spreading rashes covering their bodies. Swallowing them whole.**

**Even her dreams aren’t safe. She tries not to sleep unless she has to.**

**Riven** **> > ** **Part Ways**

**It is Three Years Ago.**

**Katrina is in another patient’s room. A boy named Ross.**

**His skin is markedly clear, much better than a few days ago.**

**Ross has been in Q-Ward for a month. Longer than anyone, except Katrina herself. His infection was on his leg, and progressed abnormally slowly.**

**She broke out of her room almost daily, to go meet him.**

**He taught her about video games. About how you could explore things on the internet.**

**She knew about them before, of course, but he offered to play them with her. She loved playing games with him.**

**Depressing though she was, he always greeted her with a smile, with an immutable hope.**

**He reassured her that her parents would never give up on her. That one day, they would both make it out of here, together.**

**And here he was, telling her the good news. He’s better. By a miracle, his body had fought off the Rust, and he was going home tomorrow.**

**Katrina smiles and congratulates him, but the selfish sense of loneliness growing inside her makes her feel guilty.**

**Riven** **> > ** **First Kiss**

**It is Two Years Ago.**

**After Ross left, Katrina kept up with him over the internet, but it wasn’t the same. She missed him. She didn’t quite get the chance to tell him how she felt.**

**He suggested she sneak out to see him, and in her desperation, she agreed.**

**She had snuck through a basement window and into the world outside, where she met him at a park.**

**She had shared her first kiss with him that night.**

**Two days after, the news had exploded with activity about the new outbreak.**

**And that had been a week ago.**

**Now, Katrina stands over him, his body covered in Rust.**

**His breathing is ragged. The infection has already made its way into his lungs. He looks up at her, his eyes pale and unseeing. Even though she knows he can’t see her, she can tell he knows she’s there.**

**She takes his hand, and tries to hold his arm up to her chest, but it’s stiff, and doesn’t bend, thanks to the Rust. She feels his fingers close around her hand. He rasps, in a vague approximation of her name.**

**She begs him not to go. Not to leave her alone again. She apologizes for doing this to him. Tells him how much he means to her.**

**But it doesn’t matter. Ross can’t hear her anymore.**

**Riven** **> > ** **First Blood**

**It is Two Days Ago.**

**Katrina looks up from her computer when she hears her vacuum tube activate.**

**It contains a note from her mother, and a container with an auto injector in it. The note tells her that they’ve found a cure, and that she can take it right away.**

**Katrina takes the injector and stares at it.**

**Across the hall there is a girl. Her name is Hazel. The virus has progressed so far that she can no longer speak, but Katrina can see Hazel’s eyes moving when she breaks into her room.**

**She has never spoken to Hazel. Her case was bad by the time she got here, and she couldn’t speak.**

**Katrina takes the injector across the hall, staring at the girl.**

**The pain may be gone for Katrina, but she hasn’t forgotten what it was like.**

**If this was a vaccine... It probably wouldn’t even work against a carrier like herself. And at this point, did she even deserve to be cured?**

**She had disregarded the rules and now, because of her, hundreds are dead, maybe thousands. Maybe hundreds of thousands. The virus is spreading, probably, uncontained, as hospitals lose the ability to keep up with it.**

**At least, Katrina assumes. She doesn’t turn on the news anymore.**

**“I’m... Sorry you have to endure this.”** **Katrina tells the other girl.** **“...You deserve better than this place. You should be able to leave. You... You deserve this more than I do.”**

**Katrina presses the auto-injector against the girl’s neck.**

**There’s a soft click, as it jabs into her, and pushes the drugs into her system.**

**Hazel’s eyes go wide, and she starts to shake violently, as much as her rusted body is able. She starts making choking, gurgling sounds.**

**Katrina stares on in horror as foam pours out of Hazel’s mouth.**

**That wasn’t a cure. It wasn’t even _medicine_.**

**Katrina Brandt is a murderer.**

**The injector falls to the floor with a clatter, and the sound snaps her out of it. She turns, slamming open the door, stumbling into the hall, and back to her room, where she curls into a ball under her desk.**

**She hugs her knees to her chest and breaks down...**

**Riven** **== > ** **React.**

**It is Now zero minutes ago. Riven shakily picks up her 3DS.**

**JR: Uh. Riv?**

**JR: You ok, there?**

**RW: Shut up**

**RW: Shut the fuck up**

**RW: Don’t ask me about her**

**RW: I don’t want to fucking talk about her**

**JR: Okay, okay**

**JR: Jesus, Riv**

**JR: I didn’t realize it was that big a deal**

**JR: I thought she was just some random dead girl**

**RW: She is**

**RW: Just don’t ask me any more.**

**RW: She’s not important.**

**RW: Just. Shut up, ok.**

**JR: OK.**

**JR: Shutting up.**

**RW: Let’s just. Figure out the deal with this stupid chimney thing.**

**\- You Stopped Messaging** **JaquelineRipsworth** **-**

**Seán** **== > ** **There’s a tutorial!?**

**This boy’s room is in stark contrast to Gabe’s. The one bookshelf is full of game cases, and what books there are are the kind with pictures designed to be read right to left.**

**The room itself is a furnished attic, with a slanted ceiling and a dormer window.**

**On every wall, and some of the slanted ceilings, there’s a shelf with varying figurines lined up on each one, all related to gaming or anime. Or both.**

**Where there aren’t shelves, or other furniture, there are posters, of a similar subject matter.**

**There’s a woven basket with onions in it to the right of the door.**

**A bed is on one side of the room, and a desk is on the other, with a powerful gaming laptop, and a TV, hooked into varying gaming consoles, both modern and classic. There are so many consoles, that there are multiple HDMI and VGA signal changers, and there’s a seperate remote for each one.**

**At a bleep from the computer, the boy stands up from his desk, and shuts the gamecube off.**

**He’s got light brown hair with a purple streak in it, orange eyes, beige cargo pants, a bright pink wallet chain, and a puffy blue jacket with a fur collar, specifically chosen because of its resemblance to a particular character.**

**The boy’s name is** **Seán Campbell** **.**

**He checks the computer to find, sure enough, that SBURB has finally finished downloading. Man, why did it take so long? It should have only been about ten minutes, but it’s been, like, ten hours since he got the game.**

**Okay, maybe not ten. Maybe eight. Or six.**

**Let’s just call it more than one hours.**

**Wait. Why did he stand up? He has to sit right back down again in the same spot to get at his computer.**

**He clicks the lime green house icon for SBURB and...**

**ERROR!: SKAIANET_SERVER EXPECTED 4 USER COPIES IN GROUP ‘RED’, BUT FOUND 6. ILLEGAL COPIES DETECTED. ADDITIONAL DRM PATCH REQUIRED. DOWNLOAD PATCH NOW.**

**Error message?**

**Something about update packages? Well there’s a button that says to download the patch, so better click that.**

**Aaaand it leads him right back to the installation screen.**

**He turns to the TV and sets it to stream Twitch while he waits, putting on his favorite streamers, Alex and Sera Thompson.**

**He pulls out his phone.**

**\- You Messaged** **Riven_Widok** **-**

**HS: Hey**

**HS: What did you do?**

**HS: When you copied the game for Cubie?**

**HS: I think you set off some kind of anti-piracy thing.**

**RW: Can’t talk, kind of busy.**

**RW: Trying to keep Jackie from trashing my floor.**

**HS: Oh, you**

**HS: Already started playing**

**RW: Yes? Is that a problem?**

**HS: Not really**

**HS: I was kinda thinking maybe I’d host for you.**

**RW: Sorry man. Looks like I’m extra popular today.**

**HS: Oh.**

**HS: Ok.**

**RW: FUCK**

**RW: I have to go, Jackie’s about to destroy my entire fucking life if I don’t stop her.**

**-** **Riven_Widok** **Has Stopped Messaging You -**

**Well. That could’ve gone better.**

**Maybe she just didn’t get it. Maybe Seán wasn’t clear enough? Well, after that incident with her selfies, it’s probably better if he plays it cool for now. He doesn’t want Riven to think he’s some kind of creepy stalker.**

**...Which he isn’t, right? Right. That was just an accident.**

**He sits back, wondering what his next move would be.**

**On his TV, Alex Thompson scores his twelfth win in Among Us 5: Battle Royale.**

**“Oh yeah. I’m the king at this game!” Alex’s avatar does a funky victory pose.**

**The streamer looks over at the chat. “Chat wants to know who Sera and I are voting for in the election? Honestly, who cares? The President is just a figurehead anyway, everyone knows that.”**

**In the background of the stream, someone off screen says something that Seán can’t make out.**

**“Ha! Yeah, Sera is right, I _would_ vote for a meteor. Giant Death Meteor for president 2028!” The streamer laughs at his own joke. “All right guys. Sera’s setting up her stream right now, I have to go take care of lunch. She’s gonna be streaming some more of the Paper Mario: Thousand Year Door remake in about twenty minutes. And we’ll be back later tonight at around eight together, with our Dungeons and Dragons campaign. Aight, see you guys later!”**

**The stream goes offline, leaving Seán to his thoughts.**

**Actually. The menu should be working now, right?**

**Seán waves in the air, and the menu pops up in front of him, like an isekai.**

**That’s so damn cool.**

**He pulls out his phone to talk to BC about it.**

**...Wait, no, he can’t. BC thinks he already has the game installed.**

**Dammit, why does he do this?**

**Oh well. Guess he better just try it out. Let’s see, what can he grab?**

**He walks over to a shelf with some figurines on it. Browsing for a moment, he picks out two figurines and puts them into the inventory screen.**

**He goes over to the onion basket, by the door, and picks out a big fat onion, and chucks that in too.**

**Let’s see... There’s a poster of Sans Undertale behind his desk he’s been meaning to hang up, better grab that too. There might be an easy way to put it up using game mechanics.**

**Hmmm...**

**Wait, can two items be combined in one card?**

**Seán runs over to the gaming shelf and grabs a wiimote, stuffing it in a card, then follows it with a Nunchuk. Once the nunchuck enters the card, the whole image changes to have the nunchuk plugged in.**

**He shoves in one of those plastic blaster inserts, and gets the same result, as the image on the card changes to the wiimote and nunchuk snugly fit into the insert.**

**So, as long as two things go together, they can fit in the same card? That’s cool.**

**Seán grabs the Power Glove off the shelf. Rivaled only in sheer retro greatness by the virtual boy. it really was ahead of its time**

**He grabs his SNES as well, and puts that in the card.**

**The edges of the card flash red for a second. Wonder what that means—-**

**The SNES rockets back out of the card, smashing into his face, and bouncing off, crashing to the floor in a forlorn pile of junk.**

**Seán is thrown back by the impact, and lands flat on his ass. Immediately, he grabs his face, to find he’s bleeding pretty badly from his nose, and a cut on his cheek.**

**He throws off his jacket, so it stays clean, and pinches his nose as hard as he can.**

**He just sits there for a moment, staring at the wall, his heart pounding.**

**What the hell just happened?? Maybe the game rejected the combination of items somehow?? Maybe the combination of items is like, because the Power Glove only had two games it doesn’t count?? Or maybe the devs cross-referenced a chart and didn’t think anyone would bother to put a power glove in a card with a SNES?? Or just forgot to put it in???**

**Once the adrenaline calms down, Seán checks to see the blood still streaming down his face, with a few red spatters across the bent, shattered plastic frame of the beloved console.**

**Dammit, dammit, _dammit_! He worked so hard to get that, too…**

**His computer bleeps, letting him know the update is done. Great timing.**

**He takes a deep breath and crawls onto his knees and carefully stands up, trying not to drip blood into the carpet.**

**He heads out of the room, and into the hall, to the bathroom on his floor.**

**Thankfully, no one else is home today. The other kids, and his foster parents, are out on a field trip, although, thanks to some conveniently missing paperwork, he hadn’t been allowed to go.**

**He checks himself in the mirror. There’s a cut across his cheek, and it’s starting to bruise up.**

**He lets go of his nose, hanging his head over the sink so the blood doesn't drip on the floor.**

**Surprisingly, his nose doesn’t seem broken, even though it definitely should be. Probably. He’s not a doctor, but his SNES hit him pretty hard.**

**He reaches over, head still in the sink, and blindly slaps at the toilet paper holder, grabbing a wad of sheets and pinching them against his nose.**

**Now, he just has to wait it out. He sits down on top of the (closed) toilet, and pinches the toilet paper to the bridge of his nose.**

**Out of curiosity and boredom, He brings up the menu and checks the status page.**

**Looks like his HP actually dropped from getting his face smashed in. He’s missing about an eighth of the bar.**

**He watches it slowly tick up. Very slowly.**

**Ok, this is like watching paint dry. Boring!**

**Seán one-handedly pulls out his phone, instead.**

**\- You Messaged** **BabylonCrusader** **-**

**HS: Hey.**

**BC: Hi. Got your game set up?**

**HS: Yeah.**

**BC: Wow. Long installation time.**

**HS: Yeah, I think something about Riven’s disk copying thing triggered something about the game globally**

**HS: Because I had to download some extra DRM or something.**

**BC: Is downloading extra DRM like downloading more RAM?**

**HS: Something like that.**

**HS: Anyway.**

**HS: You remember how we decided the order we should play in?**

**BC: I remember how _you_ decided the order we should play in, and only told me exclusively and no one else.**

**HS: Yeah, I guess I did do that, didn’t I**

**HS: Probably could have helped if I had gamed it out in the chat instead of privately...**

**BC: Probably. So what about it?**

**HS: Yeah, uh**

**HS: Mari’s already hosting for Riv.**

**BC: Oof. That’s rough. I know you wanted to. Sorry, man.**

**HS: Yeah, it’s**

**HS: Whatever, i guess.**

**BC: It doesn’t sound whatever.**

**HS: So, yeah.**

**HS: You’ve got your game up and ready.**

**HS: I’ve got my game up and ready**

**HS: You’ve got your game up and ready.**

**BC: And?**

**HS: Why don’t we start playing together and just go from there?**

**BC: Okay. I’ll get the game started. Am I hosting for you?**

**HS: Yeah, that’s the plan.**

**HS: Wait, actually, gimme a minute**

**HS: BR.**

**BC: You couldn’t have taken care of that before you asked me to play??**

**Seán pockets his phone, and lets go of the wad of toilet paper. Nothing. He dabs his nose a few times, just to be safe. Still nothing, okay, we’re good.**

**He splashes some water on his face, to clean the extra blood off, and grabs a band aid from a drawer, slapping it onto the cut on his face.**

**He steps back into his room, and sets up SBURB to connect to the server.**

**BC: All right, let’s get this working.**

**HS: Looks like we’re almost connected**

**HS: Allllmmoooost...**

**HS: Done!**

**BC: Oh, neat, I can see into your room**

**BC: Oh geez. Uh, are you okay?**

**Sean looks down, seeing his shirt has blood on it. He hastily grabs the busted-up SNES and shoves it back into an inventory card.**

**HS: Uh, yea.**

**HS: Fine. just.**

**HS: Nosebleeds.**

**HS: The air is pretty dry this season.**

**BC: If you say so... Let’s just get this started, yeah?**

**Seán looks up to see the cursor form in midair, a bright green arrow pointer.**

**HS: That’s pretty cool.**

**BC: How do you think they make that happen??**

**Seán watches the cursor swoop around in front of him for a bit**

**After a while, The cursor dissappears again.**

**BC: Hey there’s this kind of appliance thing, I need to put down. Where should I put it?**

**HS: Oh gee, uh**

**HS: How big?**

**BC: Footprint-wise or how tall?**

**HS: Footprint.**

**BC: Its about four refridgerators. Like two by two.**

**HS: Well shit, that’s not gonna fit up here.**

**HS: Try out behind back of the house. First floor, behind the door that leads to the uh. What’s the word.**

**BC: ?**

**HS: fuckinnnn... place where you grow fruit trees.**

**BC: An orchard?**

**HS: YEAH**

**HS: Orchard. There’s room by the door that leads to the orchard.**

**BC: You never told me your family has an orchard. What do you grow?**

**HS: Onions, mostly.**

**BC: Okay, fine, don’t tell me.**

**HS: No, I’m serious**

**HS: we have an onion orchard.**

**HS: I spend weekends picking onions, that’s how I earn my allowance.**

**BC: How dumb do you think I am, Hollow? Onions don’t even grow on trees.**

**HS: YES THEY DO!!!**

**BC: okay, fine, whatever. Let’s just get playing, I’ll go put down the machine and I’ll be back.**

**Seán waits a few seconds, and his house shakes suddenly, before three button pop-ups show up in front of him.**

[BUILD TUTORIAL]

[COMBAT TUTORIAL]

[INVENTORY TUTORIAL]

**Huh. Okay, guess we’re doing this now. Seán taps the [COMBAT TUTORIAL] button. That one seems the most fun.**

**Another pop-up appears in front of him.**

DEPLOY THE TRAINING DUMMY

**HS: Hey, uh**

**HS: This tutorial popup needs you to do something i think.**

**BC: I saw it... But it costs something called Grist, which I don’t have.**

**HS: What?**

**HS: What kind of a dumb tutorial needs resources**

**BC: Maybe you’re not supposed to do this one first?**

**HS: Maybe. Let me try one of the others.**

**Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be a back button or anything.**

**HS: Uh.**

**HS: Problem.**

**HS: Can’t get out of the tutorial.**

**BC: Maybe you need to force-quit and relaunch the game?**

**HS: Yeah.**

**HS: Let me try that.**

**Seán sighs and goes over to his computer, and hits the good old control-alt-delete, in order to end task on SBURB, and relaunch it.**

**The load times are much shorter this time for some reason.**

**HS: Okay, I’m back.**

**The popups show up again, and this time, Seán selects the [BUILD TUTORIAL].**

**Once again, another popup.**

THIS TUTORIAL IS FOR THE BUILD PLAYER, PLEASE WAIT WHILE THEY FINISH IT.

**Seán has to manually hit a big [OK] button to dismiss the popup.**

**Another popup appears.**

SBURB IS A GAME ABOUT BUILDING. TO START, SELECT THE WALL TOOL AND PLACE A WALL.

**Seán watches Gabe’s cursor dismiss the popup. Then, nothing happens.**

**BC: Uh. Need grist again.**

**HS: What**

**HS: Who designed these tutorials.**

**HS: Whose idea was this??**

**Seán sighs, and force-quits the game again, and relaunches it. At least the load times keep getting shorter.**

**BC: Remind me why we’re playing this again?**

**HS: Shut up**

**HS: This is gonna be fun**

**HS: We just have to get past this stupid tutorial first.**

**Seán finally hits the button for [INVENTORY TUTORIAL].**

THE CARDS GIVEN TO YOU IN THE BOX CAN BE A POWERFUL TOOL IF YOU KNOW HOW TO USE IT. TO INVENTORY AN ITEM, SIMPLY PUSH IT INTO THE MENU.

**HS: Looks like we’ve got to do a bunch of stuff we already know how to do.**

**BC: Better get after it then.**

**HS: Hold on, I have an idea.**

**HS: It’s really dumb, but I want to see if it works.**

**HS: Put the cursor over here.**

**BC: Okay...?**

**The cursor comes over and Seán brings up the menu, pausing for a minute before grabbing hold of the tail end of the cursor and jamming it into one of the cards.**

WELL DONE. TO REMOVE AN ITEM FROM A CARD, SIMPLY TAP THE CARD ICON IN THE MENU.

**BC: Hey! I need that!**

**HS: HOLY SHIT THAT WORKED**

**BC: Okay, but can I have that back now**

**HS: No way, it’s mine now.**

**BC: Cool. Guess it’s my turn to restart.**

**HS: Don’t worry, I’ll finish up however much of the tutorial that I can while you’re gone.**

**Seán dismisses the latest popup. Kind of annoying that he has to keep doing that.**

IF THE CARD ICON IN THE MENU IS STRUCK WITH MORE FORCE, THE ITEM INSIDE WILL INSTEAD BE EJECTED FROM THE OTHER SIDE. THIS IS A USEFUL TIP TO LEARN FOR WEAPONIZING YOUR INVENTORY. TRY IT NOW!

**Seán shrugs and punches the card with the onion in it. Just as the popup said, the onion launches out the other side and splatters against the wall. Seán winces. He’s definitely going to have to clean that up before everyone else gets home.**

**He grabs another onion from the basket and inventories it.**

GREAT JOB! NOW YOU CAN USE YOUR INVENTORY AS A WEAPON IN COMBAT!

**Seán dismisses the popup.**

NEXT, YOU’LL LEARN ABOUT EQUIPMENT. TO EQUIP AN ITEM, GENTLY PLACE ONE HAND ON THE CARD, AND SELECT THE OPTION FOR EQUIP IN THE SUB-MENU

**Seán dismisses the popup, and hovers his hand over the power glove card. A small sub-menu pops up with three options, [EQUIP AS ACCESSORY], [EQUIP TO QUICK SLOTS], and [BACK].**

**Seán hits the option to equip it as an accessory, and the power glove immediately appears on his arm.**

**HS: Hey, that’s pretty neat.**

GREAT JOB! ITEMS THAT ARE EQUIPPED DO NOT TAKE UP ONE OF YOUR SCANALOG CARDS, ALTHOUGH THEY MUST BE PUT BACK INTO A CARD TO UNEQUIP THEM OR UPGRADE THEM.

**Seán dismisses the popup.**

YOU CAN ALSO USE QUICK SLOTS TO SET UP EXTRA EQUIPMENT FOR WHEN YOU NEED TO SWITCH ON THE FLY, SUCH AS DURING COMBAT. QUICK SLOTS ARE ALSO VALUABLE FOR AMMUNITION OR HEALING ITEMS.

**Guess what, Seán dismisses the popup.**

FOR WEAPONS, THERE IS A SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT PROCESS, WHICH WILL BE COVERED MORE IN THE COMBAT TUTORIAL. FOR NOW, CONGRATULATIONS, YOU HAVE COMPLETED THE INVENTORY TUTORIAL, BUT THERE ARE ALWAYS MORE TRICKS TO LEARN!

**Seán sighs and dismisses the popup.**

DO YOU NEED TO GO OVER THE INVENTORY TUTORIAL AGAIN?

>YES<

>NO<

**Seán hits “no”.**

ARE YOU SURE? THE INVENTORY TUTORIAL WILL NOT BE REPEATED.

>NO<

>YES<

**Seán accidentally hits “NO”.**

THEN... DO YOU WANT TO GO OVER THE INVENTORY TUTORIAL AGAIN?

>YES<

>NO<

**Seán hastily hits ‘no’ and then ‘yes’.**

**The tutorial selection popup shows up again, but this time the Inventory Tutorial is greyed out.**

**BC: I’m back, what did i miss.**

**HS: We’re going to be here a while.**

**HS: This tutorial sucks.**

**BC: Well. We already got through one of them, two more to go. This shouldn’t take that long. Unless you do something dumb like stealing the cursor again.**

**HS: I won’t.**

**HS: Hopefully after this, this game will be actually fun.**

**BC: By the way, looks like we got “build grist” for the last tutorial, so I think that one is probably the one we ought to go for.**

**HS: Fair enough.**

**Seán taps the popup for the Build Tutorial again, and goes through the popups a second time, and gets back to where he was before, where it was asking for Gabriel to build a wall.**

**Gabe’s cursor goes over to the popup and then dismisses it. Seán watches as it moves, leaving a small wall behind in the middle of his room, about knee-height.**

**HS: Don’t build it there.**

**HS: I’m going to trip on it.**

**BC: On my screen there’s an outline here. I have to build it here.**

**HS: Ugh.**

**HS: I sure hope it deletes it before we get into the actual game.**

GREAT JOB! NOW YOU UNDERSTAND HOW TO BUILD WALLS. NEXT, SELECT AN EDGE OF THE ROOM, AND BUMP IT OUT USING THE EXTEND ROOM TOOL!

**Seán watches as Gabe’s cursor creates a new alcove in his room, on the left wall.**

GREAT JOB! NOW YOU UNDERSTAND HOW TO MAKE ROOMS LARGER! PLEASE NOTE THAT UNDER CERTAIN CIRCUMSTANCES, NON-EUCLIDIAN SPACES CAN BE CREATED, AND MAY BE HARMFUL IF ENTERED!

**Gabe dismisses the popup.**

GREAT JOB! NEXT, YOU WILL LEARN HOW TO COPY OBJECTS, SELECT THE STAIRCASE OUTSIDE, AND CREATE A COPY OF IT ON THE ROOF!

**Seán watches Gabe’s cursor head out of the room, and a few seconds later, hears a thud from over his head.**

**HS: I hope for my sake that is subtle, or else I’m in big trouble when my family gets back.**

**BC: Yeah, it’s not.**

GREAT JOB! REMEMBER, BE CAREFUL ABOUT STAIRS. THIS CONCLUDES THE BUILD TUTORIAL. WAS THERE ANYTHING YOU NEEDED TO GO OVER AGAIN?

>NO<

>YES<

**Seán hits no.**

ARE YOU SURE? THE BUILD TUTORIAL WILL NOT BE REPEATED.

>YES<

>NO<

**This is getting more infuriating by the second. Seán smacks the no button.**

**Finally the menu deciding on the three tutorials pops up again, and the only one that’s left is the [Combat Tutorial]**

**HS: I’m about to smack whoever designed this.**

**BC: Almost there, buddy. Only one left to go.**

**HS: Yeah, yeah.**

**Seán taps the Combat Tutorial, and the cursor disappears for a moment before returning, holding some kind of wooden, legless approximation of a mannequin.**

THIS TRAINING DUMMY WILL BE YOUR SPARRING PARTNER. DO NOT WORRY ABOUT HURTING THE TRAINING DUMMY. THE TRAINING DUMMY DOES NOT HAVE FEELINGS AND CANNOT FEEL PAIN.

**Seán dismisses the popup.**

TO ENGAGE IN COMBAT, YOU MUST FIRST EQUIP A WEAPON. WEAPONS ARE SELECTED THROUGH A STRIFE SPECIBUS, WHICH DESCRIBES YOUR CHOSEN WEAPON TYPE. WEAPONS OUTSIDE YOUR STRIFE SPECIBUS CANNOT BE EQUIPPED AS WEAPONS.

**Oh. Well that’s annoying. (Seán dismisses the popup).**

WOULD YOU LIKE TO RUN AUTO-SPEC TO ASSIGN A STRIFE SPECIBUS TO YOU AUTOMATICALLY? YOUR STRIFE SPECIBUS CANNOT BE CHANGED LATER.

**Well, that’s weird. The popup doesn’t have a ‘NO’ button. Just the usual ‘OK’.**

**BC: Hey, seems like you don’t really need me right now, so I’m going to go get something to eat. Text me when it’s time for me to do something again.**

**HS: Sure. I’ll finish this combat thingy on my own.**

**Seán taps ok (Which dismisses the popup), and his menu automatically opens in front of him, to a screen with a spinny loading thing, and a message.**

RUNNING STRIFE SPECIBUS AUTO-SCAN, PLEASE WAIT...

**Seán waits for a few seconds, and the message changes.**

INVENTORY SCANNED, SELECTING BEST OPTION, PLEASE WAIT...

**A few more seconds pass, and a card appears on screen, this one green, unlike his Scanalog Cards, with an interface of its own.**

**A picture of a Nintendo 64 controller pops up.**

YOUR AUTO-ASSIGNED STRIFE SPECIBUS IS: CONTROLLERKIND!

**Well then. Seán dismisses the popup.**

EQUIPPABLE WEAPONS IN THE AREA ARE THE FOLLOWING:

**This popup displays a list of controller-like objects around his room. His mouse, his keyboard, the Nintendo 64 controller, the SNES controller, an arcade pad, the wiimote and nunchuck, and of course, his Power Glove.**

PLEASE PICK ONE OF THESE ITEMS AND EQUIP IT NOW!

**Seán goes to his game cabinet and picks up his Nintendo 64 Controller, before putting it in the card.**

GREAT JOB! NOW YOU CAN TAKE OUT AND PUT AWAY YOUR WEAPON AT WILL, JUST LIKE THE MENU!

**Seán dismisses the popup.**

YOU’RE NOW READY FOR COMBAT! STRIKE THE TRAINING DUMMY TO CONTINUE!

**Seán looks down at his chosen weapon in his hands, unsure of how to use it.**

IF YOU’RE WORRIED ABOUT BREAKING YOUR WEAPON, DO NOT BE! DURING COMBAT, PROVIDED YOUR WEAPON IS ONLY USED AS A WEAPON, IT WILL NOT BE DAMAGED BEYOND REPAIR. HOWEVER, CERTAIN ENEMIES MAY HAVE EQUIPMENT DAMAGING ABILITIES. IF A WEAPON IS DAMAGED OR CHANGED IN ANY WAY, YOUR STRIFE SPECIBUS MAY CHANGE TO REFLECT THIS FACT, SO BE CAREFUL.

**Wh- hang on, Seán didn’t even dismiss the first popup. He dismisses this one, and then the other one.**

YOU’RE NOW READY FOR COMBAT! STRIKE THE TRAINING DUMMY TO CONTINUE!

**Oh, lovely, it looks like it only progresses when he does what it says.**

**Let’s see. What’s the best way to hold a controller as a weapon? Seán tries a couple different grips, and then eventually just decides to wrap the cord around his hand a couple times.**

**He swings it like a flail, delivering a nasty wallop to the training dummy!**

GREAT JOB! YOU’RE WELL ON YOUR WAY TO UNDERSTANDING COMBAT BASICS! NEXT YOU SHOULD LEARN ABOUT TAKING DAMAGE! STAND STILL, AND ALLOW THE DUMMY TO HIT YOU.

**Seán dismisses the popup, but seeing something move out of the corner of his eye, reacts instinctively, and sidesteps as the training dummy smashes a wooden arm into the ground where he was just standing!**

**“Hey!”**

**The training dummy shudders uncomfortably at Seán dodging his blow.**

PLEASE ALLOW THE DUMMY TO STRIKE YOU.

**Seán frowns again, and again, dismisses the popup, only to dodge another oncoming blow.**

PLEASE ALLOW THE DUMMY TO STRIKE YOU.  
  
  


**Seán sighs and then dismisses the popup, before closing his eyes and bracing himself to get hit.**

**The blow launches him backwards into the wall, and he slides down, until he’s sitting on the floor.**

OPEN THE STATUS MENU, YOU WILL SEE THAT YOUR HEALTH HAS BEEN REDUCED.

**“Yes, thank you, I know that already!”** **Seán exclaims, dismissing the popup, before opening the menu quickly just to make the tutorial progress.**

NEXT WE WILL LEARN ABOUT MANUEVERS! TO INITIATE A MANUEVER COMMAND, SIMPLY USE THE COMBAT MENU.

**Seán checks through the menu. There isn’t a combat menu. He frowns and dismisses the popup.**

IN THIS CASE, THE DUMMY WILL INITIATE THE THREE MANUEVER COMMANDS, AND YOU CAN OBSERVE THEIR EFFECTS YOURSELF. PLEASE ATTACK THE DUMMY EACH TIME IT INITIATES A COMMAND.

**Seán dismisses the popup and eyes the dummy warily, climing to his feet.**

**[DEFEND]**

**The dummy just stands there, unmoving, after the callout fades away. Seán shrugs and swings at it again. It’s a rather solid blow, and connects with the dummy’s head.**

OBSERVE THE REDUCED DAMAGE FROM THE [DEFEND] STATE.

**Seán dismisses this popup.**

**[DODGE]**

**Seán swings at the dummy again, and it shifts to the side, out of his way.**

OBSERVE THAT HITTING A TARGET IN THE [DODGE] STATE IS MUCH HARDER.

**Seándismissesthepopup.**

**[COUNTER]**

**Really?**

**Seán sighs and then swings at the dummy again.**

**Just as his blow connects, the dummy lashes out and hits him in the stomach, flooring him again.**

**He groans and pushes himself to his feet.**

OBSERVE HOW AN ENEMY IN THE [COUNTER] STATE CAN REACT TO ATTACKS, BUT NOT AVOID THEM.

**Seán weakly dismisses the popup.**

GREAT JOB! NOW YOU UNDERSTAND THE EFFECTS OF COMBAT MANUEVERS. JUST THIS ONCE YOU WILL BE AUTOMATICALLY HEALED TO FULL, BUT UNDER NORMAL CIRCUMSTANCES, YOU WILL NEED TO REST FOR A LONG TIME OR USE HEALING ITEMS TO RECOVER YOUR HEALTH. WHEN YOUR HEALTH DROPS TO ZERO, YOU WILL PASS OUT.

**Duh. And you complete the game by winning. Seán dismisses the popup, feeling much better as his body heals near-instantly.**

DEVELOPER’S NOTE: COMBAT MANUEVERS ARE CUT CONTENT, PLEASE IGNORE THE PREVIOUS TUTORIAL SECTION.

**Oh. Lovely. What a flaming waste of time.**

PLEASE OPEN YOUR MENU AGAIN, AS WE WILL NEXT COVER STATS.

**Seán dismisses the popup and opens the menu to the Character page.**

STATS ARE NOT YOUR IN-GAME ABILITIES, BUT INSTEAD NUMERICAL REPRESENTATIONS OF YOUR REAL POTENTIAL. THE SAME IS TRUE OF HIT POINTS (HP) AND SKILL POINTS (SP). BOTH REPRESENT THE ENERGY AND WILL TO CONTINUE FIGHTING.

**Seán dismisses the popup.**

WHERE GAME MECHANICS ARE CONCERNED, STR AND INT BOTH FEED INTO YOUR ATTACK VALUE (AV) WHICH REPRESENTS YOUR DAMAGE OUTPUT. YOU CAN EITHER CHOOSE TO FIGHT HARD OR FIGHT SMART. VIT DETERMINES YOUR HP AND DEFENSE VALUE (DV), WHILE WIL DETERMINES YOUR SP. AGI AND LCK ARE OBVIOUS.

**Are they, though? Seán dismisses the popup.**

WELL DONE! YOU WERE PAYING ATTENTION EXCELLENTLY. TO FINALIZE THE TUTORIAL, PLEASE FINISH OFF THE TRAINING DUMMY!

**Seán dismisses the popup and brandishes his n64 controller. He might be here a while. And BabylonCrusader is still not back yet.**

**“Fuck it, I’ve got nothing better to do, I guess.”**

**Iris** **== > ** **Cover up that bruise**

**This girl is in front of a mirror, dabbing concealer over a messy bruise on her cheek.**

**Her name is** **Iris Argyres** **. She’s dressed in a faded and paint-stained denim jacket over a plain pink tee and a magenta skirt, with pink socks and blue sneakers. Her blonde hair has a pink highlight going through her bangs.**

**She admires her own makeup job with a sort of sad, anxious look for a few seconds, and then decides that it’s good enough.**

**She steps back from the dresser-top mirror and looks around her room, a furnished basement area with a thick plush carpet.**

**In one corner of the room is a pair of bins, surrounded by a small colored fence. Iris’ pet bunny, Pastel, is asleep in the bin full of hay, lit by a beam from the sole window-well in her room.**

**Her bed is just beside Pastel’s enclosure, made neatly, with a quilt of Van Gogh’s _Starry Night_.**

**The walls of the room are adorned with paintings on canvas, without frames. Some of Iris’ earlier work, all abstract. Most of her newer work, she tries to sell online, for a modest amount of money at best.**

**Basically, enough to pay for more art supplies, and Pastel’s hay and that’s about it.**

**Iris listens to the comforting sound of the basement machinery on the other side of the wall for a few minutes, and then nods at her reflection, satisfied.**

**She stands up from the small stool she’s on, and heads for the door. She opens it to a small basement area, with a sink in one corner, and a door that leads to the utilities room.**

**There’s another simple desk in here, upon which a powerful Alienware laptop sits, though she rarely uses it for gaming.**

**An easel with a canvas on it is beside the sink, with another stool nearby with her painting supplies on it.**

**A door next to her bedroom’s leads to the utility area, with the boiler and electrical box and stuff.**

**She goes over to the canvas and looks at it for a few minutes, her newest work vaguely resembling something like a small solar system, with twelve planets.**

**But she can’t manage to find any inspiration. Painter’s block again. She sighs, and looks among her paintbrushes. These ones are pretty old.**

**After this painting is done, she’ll have to get new ones. She can take the bristles and metal off and give the handles to Pastel to gnaw on.**

  
  


**Iris’ phone buzzes softly in her pocket, but she ignores it for a few seconds, before fully giving up on her painting.**

**She goes back into her room and quietly opens the fence around Pastel, to let her hop around, now that she’s done doing her makeup and has given up on painting for the day. At least she doesn’t have to clean up leftover paint from not making any progress.**

**Finally, she pulls out her phone.**

**-** **Riven_Widok** **Has Messaged You -**

**RW: Hey.**

**CM: hi**

**RW: I’ve got the disk images ready for you.**

**RW: If you’re ready to start them getting installed, it shouldn’t take long from here.**

**CM: oh cool**

**CM: send them to me ill get them started**

**-** **Riven_Widok** **sent you a file: SBURB_RedDisk.ISO -**

 **-** **Riven_Widok** **sent you a file: SBURB_BluDisk.ISO -**

**CM: great thanks**

**CM: what do i do with these**

**CM: ive never seen this kind of file**

**RW: Oh, shoot, sorry.**

**RW: You can just run them, they’re just disk images.**

**RW: I’ve got a dummy player up and ready, too.**

**RW: When you’re ready to start, let me know, and I can host you.**

**CM: ill let you know**

**RW: Cool. I gotta go keep Jackie from destroying my entire life, bye.**

**CM: sounds like fun**

**-** **Riven_Widok** **Has Stopped Messaging You -**

**Iris pockets her phone, and sighs. She goes over to her computer, downloads both files, and runs them.**

**She really hopes she can get this to work.**

**Just as they’re installing, she hears footsteps on the stairs coming down to her room.**

**Iris hurries back into her room and quickly closes Pastel’s fence, worried she’ll get in trouble for letting her rabbit run around free, even though Pastel isn’t even awake yet.**

**Iris’ foster father comes thundering down the stairs into her main room.**

**Jim is somewhere past middle age, although his body language and hygiene haven’t aged past nineteen, he has dark brown hair parted in the middle, and a crooked nose above a short beard. He’s dressed in a worn wifebeater and tattered anime hoodie, faded to the point where you can no longer tell what series it’s supposed to be from, baggy sweatpants, and a flat-brim snapback with an Overwatch logo, definitely out of style.**

**“Iris!” He shouts. “Did you trip the breaker again!?”**

**Iris shakes her head, backing away from him, with her hands up defensively.**

**“Didn’t you hear it go off? Why didn’t you reset it? Jesus christ, Iris, the League of Legends 3 world tournament is in fifteen minutes! You know this is important to me!”**

**Oh, shit. That event was today, wasn’t it?**

**“I have to take care of everything in this house! Even in your space!” Jim throws up his hands.**

**Iris flinches and shuts her eyes, as he storms into the utility room.**

**She breathes a sigh of relief for a moment, before her eyes land on the computer. It still has the installation screen for SBURB on it. When Jim turns around, and leaves the utility room, he’ll for sure see it. There’s no way that will have a good outcome.**

**She tries to run over to it, but she hears the breaker click in the utility room. The sound of the TV coming back on upstairs rings out, as the pre-tournament commentary starts up. The door opens, and Jim steps out, cursing under his breath.**

**Iris’ heart drops.**

**The room grows dark for a second, and the words of the TV upstairs sound garbled, still like english but completely unintelligible.**

**The moment passes, and the room returns to normal. Iris blinks, seeing an afterimage of some kind of fish-shaped object.**

**Jim blinks, similarly confused, and mutters something about how he must have just had too many lights on.**

**Iris looks over at her computer to see that it’s open to her webpage for selling paintings somehow. Weird. She definitely didn’t make it in time.**

**But what matters is Jim didn’t notice the game installing, so that’s a good thing, right?**

**Iris takes a minute to catch her breath, sitting down against the wall and feeling her heart pound out of her chest.**

**It takes nearly five minutes for her heartbeat to return to normal, her panic backed by the cheering and game tournament announcements from upstairs.**

**She shakily pushes to her feet and goes over to her computer to check on it.**

**Alt-Tabbing takes her back to the SBURB installation screen, which looks like it’s done already.**

**She pulls out her phone.**

**\- You Messaged** **Riven_Widok** **-**

**CM: all right**

**CM: im ready now**

**RW: Damn, that was fast.**

**RW: Let’s get this party started, huh?**


End file.
